Improbable Research

Thorsten Altenkirch
Member, Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
Reader, School of Computer Science
Nottingham University
Nottingham, UK
<more about this member>

"This is a photo of my work outfit. The hammer is the hammer of science. "

Sally Appelin
Member, Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
Ph.D Anthropology
Centre for Social Anthropology and Computing (CSAC)
University of Kent
Canterbury, UK
<more about this member>

"I am an anthropologist who examines automation in the context of preserving human agency. My dissertation focused on small independent fringe new technology makers in Silicon Valley, what they are making, and most critically, how the adoption of the outcomes of their efforts impact society and culture locally, and/or globally. During this process, I grew my hair. This photo shows research, write-up, and defense hair growth. Remarkably, it did not turn entirely grey during this process."

Katy Croff Bell
Member, Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
VP, Exploration & Research
Ocean Exploration Trust
Old Lyme, Connecticut, USA
<more about this member>

"I believe that there is a linear relationship between my hair length and scientific prowess. I have had luxuriant flowing hair since 1991, when I won 2nd place at the Greater San Diego Science and Engineering Fair, thus launching my scientific career. I am now an oceanographer and find that the best place for my hair to enjoy its natural state is at sea, in particular in the seat of the crane where it can flow luxuriantly. "

Ragnhild Bjørknes
Member, Luxuriant Flowing, Former, or Facial Hair Club for Social Scientists
Professor, Faculty of Psychology
University of Bergen
Bergen, Norway
<more about this member>

"She is an associate professor at the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Bergen in Norway, and more importantly - she has great hair! I am her sister and I instantly thought that she belongs in this luxurious club when I first heard about it at the Ig Nobel Prize show at the University of Oslo, where I work.
Sadly, I cannot nominate myself since I am not a researcher, and also because of my bleached and broken hair. My sister on the other hand has long, flowing, natural chocolate brown, beautiful hair, as you can see in the picture."
(Nominated by Ida Marie Bjørknes)

Andreas Carlson
Member, Luxuriant Former Hair Club for Scientists
Associate Professor in Mechanics
Department of Mathematics
University of Oslo
Oslo, Norway
<more about this member>

Prof. Carlson gave these unprepared remarks when his membership was announced at the Ig Nobel Night in Oslo:
"Thank you so much for thinking about me and this club. I am truly honored to be part of it and when I look into this great audience of people at the university of Oslo I see truly great potential. I mean I see flowing blondes and blank skulls. And yeah, I would encourage you all to join our fancy club"
(Nominated by Marc Abrahams)

Mike Coffey
Member, Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
Member, Luxuriant Facial Hair Club for Scientists
Lecturer (Analytical Chemistry)
Chemistry & Forensics
Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham, UK
<more about this member>

"I am a lecturer in analytical chemistry at Nottingham Trent University, U.K. I last went to a barber at the age of 14; since then occasional trims remain times of tension in my marriage when my wife insists very hard. I grew my beard when my daughters started going through the 'You are SO embarrassing' phase, just to prove a point. I wish to join before I need to apply for the 'Luxuriant Former Hair' instead."

Jake Eccles
Member, Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
MD/PhD (MSTP) Candidate
Dept of Microbiology, Immunology, and Cancer Biology
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
<more about this member>

"I hope that all scientists are driven not only to better understand our world, but also by a desire to improve the lives of its occupants. Certainly, research demonstrates incredible potential to contribute to such far-reaching goals, and yet I am struck by the degree of internal hostility to which scientific communities are prone. If we, in our profession, truly possess such noble aspirations, these ought be expressed regularly through our relationships to colleagues. Thus, my hair represents an appeal to all seekers of truth and beauty: let your good will toward fellow scientists ever be luxuriant and flowing!"

Robert Eklund
Member, Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
Associate Professor of Computational Linguistics
University Lecturer in Language, Culture and Phonetics
Linköping University
Linköping, Sweden
<more about this member>
<If you understand either Swedish or Cheetah>

"Although a speech technologist by trade (I created the first commercial speech recognizer for Swedish, the first concatenative speech synthesizer and also worked on one of the biggest speech-to-speech translation projects ever; book on Cambridge University Press), since 2009 I have studied, and published extensively on cheetah purring, lion roaring, cheetah vocalizations. My friend, and recent Ig Nobel Prize winner, Elisabeth Oberzaucher, recommended me to apply for a membership in your illustrious club. These photos are by my girlfriend, Miriam Oldenburg, who does have long hair but is a musician (as I am, too), but alas not a scientist."

Mary Glesner
Member, Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
R&D Chemist
INVISTA
Camden, South Carolina,USA
<more about this member>

"As my years in graduate school mounted and I found myself poor and without 'free time', I found that a trip to the salon got cut out of the schedule and led to my lengthening hair. With hopes of defending, I wondered how long my hair would grow until I graduated. The result? A head of luxuriant flowing hair and one Ph.D! Now, I spend my days thinking about carpet... I suppose frieze is the luxuriant flowing carpet among floorcoverings."

Charles Hoffman
Member, Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
Professor of Biology
Boston College
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
<more about this member>
<Another view of this member's hair>

"I am a molecular geneticist who uses the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe to study cyclic nucleotide signaling. I am so focused on my research that I rarely notice how long my hair has grown. Every year or two, my daughter insists on cutting it so that it does not reach my waste. I have come to see my hair as part of my 'brand', otherwise I'd be just another short Jewish yeast geneticist."

Eleni Pinnow
Member, Luxuriant Flowing, Former, or Facial Hair Club for Social Scientists
Associate Professor of Psychology
University of Wisconsin, Superior
Superior Wisconsin, USA
<more about this member>
<Another view of this member's hair>

"This is a picture of me kissing a redwood tree. I am a Cognitive Psychologist and I study how people process spoken language; mostly, though, I mentor undergraduate research and try to instill the job of the scientific process in my students. I started growing my hair out after tenure because I needed a new challenge. I love my long untamed hair (several students remarked on its similarity to Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School bus)."

Jason L. Rasgon
Member, Luxuriant Facial Hair Club for Scientists
Associate Professor of Disease Epidemiology
Department of Entomology
The Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, and the Huck Institutes of The Life Sciences
The Pennsylvania State University
University Park, Pennsylvania, USA
<more about this member>

"I grew a beard in graduate school during fieldwork in Peru and have been too lazy ever since to shave it off. I shampoo it with whatever I happen to be using on my head and trim it every three months when I cut my hair whether it needs it or not. Possessing a beard like mine is a sign of obvious productivity because I can't be bothered to spend even 5 extra minutes a day to keep it minimally kempt. I'd grow my hair out to join the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists™ but I'm going bald on top, and it would make me look like a degenerate."

Hank Rawlins
Member, Luxuriant Facial Hair Club for Scientists
Technical Director
eProcess Technologies
Butte, Montana, USA
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"I am a metallurgical engineer and Technical Director of my own company. Most of my research is for the upstream oil and gas industry. My original goal was to grow a flowing mane, but after a sordid incident at a Billy Squier concert in the mullet stage I cropped my locks. The switch to hirsute chin started with no shave November which kept going year round. On a recent trip to Dubai random people asked to take photos of my beard. It seems that only muftis and ISIS fighters grow decent beards and I didn't appear to fit either category."

Michael Scheid
Member, Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
Ph.D student in neuroscience
Slutzky Neuroprosthetics Laboratory Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
Evanston, Illinois, USA
<more about this member>
<even more about this member>

"I am a Ph.D student in neuroscience at Northwestern University studying neurophysiology using biofeedback in monkeys. I stopped cutting my hair when I began working on my thesis to save time and money, and now, my only regret in life is all the time and money I spent not growing out long luscious luxurious flowing hair earlier."

Keith Wampler
Member, Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists
Senior Scientist
Provivi, Inc.
Santa Monica, California, USA
<more about this member>

"My hair while also beautifully blond, grows insanely fast. I have grown it out to about this length three times in the last 15 years and the most recent growth is only about three years old. I have never spent more than $5 on shampoo and I only get it trimmed once a year. My five year old's friends all want to touch my 'Elsa' hair when I drop her off at kindergarten. I did a Ph.D. with Dick Schrock at MIT from 2005-2010 during which time he was co-awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of the olefin metathesis method in organic synthesis. After the prize we made a new generation of catalysts that I am now using to literally save the world. After MIT, I decided that I wanted to be a process chemist and take these catalysts which were nothing more than a lab oddity and use them on the metric ton scale and I did that. My first start-up is/was called Elevance Renewable Sciences and there we used my catalysts and some related, more industrially relevant catalysts from one of the other awardees of that Nobel prize to transform cooking oils into chemicals. From there I some how convinced a company in Santa Monica, California to move me out here so I could start smoking weed and going to the beach, which has been pretty awesome."