Film merges Christopher Knowlton’s dancing talent and knee research.

As a dancer, Christopher Knowlton understands how movement and force can impact a person's knees and lead to injuries. As a research assistant in the Tribology Laboratory at Rush University Medical Center, he is participating in research aimed at creating better-performing, longer-lasting implants for knee replacement surgery. Recently, he had the rare opportunity to combine his passions for dance and bioengineering when he was named a finalist in the international “Dance Your PhD” contest. He shared his experiences, and his video, on the Rush InPerson blog. The following is an excerpt from his post:

I am a PhD student in bioengineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I work as a research assistant under Dr. Markus Wimmer in the Tribology Laboratory of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at Rush University Medical Center, where I am doing my thesis research on the wear of total knee replacements. Like many graduate students, I have a second job, but I bet your list of best guesses didn’t include professional dancer.

On any given week, I spend around 10 to 20 hours per week in rehearsals and shows for various independent choreographers in Chicago. Until recently, my work as a graduate student and my career as a dancer were largely separate. But on Tuesday, I was named a finalist for the international Dance Your Ph.D. contest on Science magazine’s website.

A little over a year ago, Rachel Thorne Germond of RTG Dance, the first choreographer I worked with in Chicago, posted a link to the contest on Facebook. Not long after, there was an explosion of posts among my dancer friends sharing a TED talk given by John Bohannon & Black Label Movement called Dance vs. powerpoint, a modest proposal. John Bohannon is a correspondent for Science magazine who created the Dance Your PhD contest to encourage scientists to better engage a broad audience with complex ideas. Since I was hearing about this contest from other dancers instead of PhD students, it became obvious that nonscientists really connected to this type of presentation. It was such a great fit for me that I knew I had to participate.

Watch Christopher Knowlton’s video and read the rest of his post on the Rush InPerson blog.

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• Find out whether you’re a candidate for minimally invasive total knee replacement surgery .
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November 2012