These researchers are dancing a PhD. | Image: Youtube

This doctoral thesis can be summed up in three simple lines: “We’re looking for molecular clusters / and we try to find them faster / Searching through configurational space”. But these lines sound quite different when rapped by the atmospheric scientist Jakub Kubečka from Finland in his song ‘Molecular clusters’, with which he won this year’s ‘Dance your Ph.D.’ contest. Along with its witty interplay of text, dance and music, his rap takes inwardly ironic jabs at the scientific system: “I’m the first author, you’re just et al.”. This year, the competition also offered a special prize for COVID-19 contributions. It was won by Heather Masson-Forsythe from the USA, who in her dance video assumes the roles of the different proteins of the virus as they twist and spin unpredictably.