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"Dance my PhD? Are you kidding? This is science - not the stage!"

As Joel Miller worked on creating the perfect long-lasting hip replacement, the idea of spending a weekend dancing seemed like a waste of time.

But his girlfriend talked him into it and the Materials Engineering PhD student has won Science magazine's fourth international Dance Your PhD competition.

Akin to the Three Minute Thesis, this competition challenges PhD candidates from all fields of science all over the world to translate their research to visual art. This is no place for the shy or modest researcher: they must all appear in their video presentations.

Joel is working with Professor Tim Sercombe in the School of Mechanical and Chemical engineering, to find the right form of titanium for hip replacements. It must be strong but flexible and compatible with human bone.

The notion of compatibility lends itself to a romantic story-line. The winning video tells the story of a relationship between Titanium Man and Bone Woman in Microstructure-Property relationships in Ti2488 components produced by Selective Laser Melting: A Love Story.

Revision surgery, or repeat hip replacement, is most commonly needed because of deterioration of the bone's integrity. Bone needs stress to grow but the materials currently used in orthopaedic implants are too stiff, and prevent stress transfer to the bone.

"My research aims to develop the use of new titanium alloys, coupled with an advanced rapid manufacturing method, Selective Laser Melting (SLM)," Joel said. "SLM allows highly complex geometry, so the implant can be manufactured with a porous scaffold structure, resulting in excellent potential for bone growth."

The video illustrates the effect of the titanium alloy microstructure. Joel and Professor Sercombe hope the new material will lead to more durable orthopaedic implants, reducing the need for revision surgery.

"I have always wanted to do work that would help people," said Joel.

He will go to Belgium this week to collect his $1,000 prize. While in Europe he will attend a materials manufacturing conference in Germany and visit a world leader in titanium in Birmingham.

Joel's video beat 54 entries from around the world to win the physics category and the major prize, without even using a video camera. "We took 2,200 still photographs and put them together in what's called stop-motion animation," Joel said. "I watched a lot of cartoons to get ideas!"

He features in the animation as Titanium Man, resplendent in silver tights, cape and red undies on the outside. Bone Woman is played by friend Sara Fontaine, an architect and salsa dancer; the alpha form of titanium is Joel's sister Kaylin, a nurse with circus skills; and the beta form is Joel's girlfriend, Trish Wood, a contemporary dancer.

The love story took weeks of planning but just six hours of filming at Lake Monger and in Melbourne where Joel's sister lives. Two nights of editing to original music by Perth band The Transients, and the UWA entry was ready for the competition.

The dances are judged on scientific merit, artistic merit and how creatively science and art have been combined. The judges include scientists, dancers and psychologists. The three minor prize winners, in the categories of chemistry, biology and social science, were from Cornell, Oxford and Queen's universities. Their dances were based on protein X-ray crystallography; fruit fly sex; and pigeon courtship.

In the 10 days after Joel was announced as the winner, his video had 64,000 people visit his site.

To see it, go to: https://vimeo.com/30299036

Published in UWA News , 14 November 2011