Improbable Research

Karen McFarlane Holman has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. Thomas McFarlane, who nominated her, says:

My sister, Karen, has had luxuriant flowing hair ever since we were children. The photo shows it swinging around during a performance with her band, The Funhouse Strippers. She is also a chemistry professor using infrared spectroelectochemistry and X-ray absorption spectroscopy to investigate fundamental chemistry related to the mechanisms of action of ruthenium anti-cancer drugs.

Karen McFarlane Holman, Ph.D., LFHCfS
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Willamette University
Salem, Oregon, USA

Evann Souza has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. She says:

In May 2007 I obtained my Masters of Science in Conservation Biology and Environmental Sciences from the University of Hawaii at Hilo. I currently work for the USDA-ARS, doing agricultural insect research primarily with fruit flies. I have attached a picture of myself in Costa Rica where I took a field studies class

Evann Souza, MS, LFHCfS
Tropical Plant Pests Research
Biological Science Technician (Insects)
USDA Agricultural Research Service
Hilo, Hawaii, USA, USA

Tim Marzullo has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. He says:

The lovely lady next to me [in the photo] is my girlfriend, a vet student at Michigan State.

Tim Marzullo, LFHCfS
Graduate student in neural engineering
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA

Megan McCullen has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. She says:

I am doing my dissertation research on the archaeology and ethnohistory of migration and community identity. On archaeological digs, and in daily life, I’m known for wearing bandanas to keep my luxuriant flowing hair out of my eyes. I hope to follow in the footsteps of the great anthropologist and recent LFHCfS inductee Margaret Mead.

Megan M. McCullen, LFHCfS
Doctoral Candidate in Anthropology
Michigan State University
East Lansing, Michigan, USA, USA

Eloise Kendy has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. Anne Eustice, who nominated her, says:

My sister-in-law, Eloise, who has Luxuriant Flowing Hair AND is a scientist. This accolade which will add that something special to her standing in the scientific community. It’s a membership she’ll be proud to share with family and friends.

Eloise Kendy, PhD, LFHCfS
Director, Environmental Flows Program
The Nature Conservancy
Helena, Montana, USA

Dawn Parker has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. She says:

I interviewed for my current highly interdisciplinary position at George Mason on a 95 degree day in April, on which my luxuriant flowing tresses were nothing short of Medusa-like, meeting with the Provost and deans of three colleges as part of the interview process. The university subsequently made me a very attractive offer well tailored to my diverse strengths and activities. I accepted the job with confidence, knowing that if my hair were acceptable to the broader university community, my ideas as a whole were likely to be as well. My research on agent-based models of land-use and land-cover change resides at the ecotone between economics and geography.

Dawn Cassandra Parker, PhD, LFHCfS
Assistant Professor, Department of Computational Social Science, Kransnow Institute for Advanced Study
Affiliate, Departments of Environmental Science and Policy, Geography, and Geoinformation and Earth Systems Science, College of Science
George Mason University
Fairfax, Virginia, USA

David H. North has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. Carol Lucier, who nominated him, says:

In addition to having luxuriant flowing long hair, David is an analytical chemist for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, working in the Dartmouth Laboratory in Nova Scotia on the analysis of antibiotic drug residues in fish. The picture shows David at work, surrounded by the millions of dollars worth of equipment he uses. His hair is even more luxuriant and flowing today.

David H North, MS, LFHCfS
Chemist
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada

Siegfried Peer has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. He says:

I have got luxurious flowing hair in general, but I have luxuriously flowing hair only once or twice a week. I am Professor of Radiology at the Innsbruck Medical University Department of Radiology, where I am the section head of the sections for diagnostic and interventional sonography and general radiology. When I am not scratching at the sound barrier, filling intestines with various types of sticky contrast material or reporting on piles of X-rays, I am also a semiprofessional Tango Argentino dancer and teacher.

Siegfried Peer, MD, LFHCfS
Professor of Radiology
Innsbruck Medical University, Department of Radiology
Innsbruck, Austria

Martin Schiavenato has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. He says:

I do pediatric pain research, particularly facial expressions and their role in the communication of pain. This partially explains my inability to form a decent smile; too self-conscious. Also, I have a rather inborn inability to form a decent smile. Alas, I rub elbows (split ends?) with Brian May

Martin Schiavenato, PhD, RN, LFHCfS
Assistant Professor
University of Rochester School of Nursing
Rochester, New York, USA

James Hildebrand has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. Emily Miller, who nominated him, says:

I am thrilled to nominate James Hildebrand and his luxuriant flowing mane. Mr. Hildebrand conducts research into emergency department pharmacotherapy while a medical student at the University of Rochester.

James Hildebrand, B.A., LFHCfS
Research Associate, Emergency Pharmacist Research Center
Medical Student
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY

Shyam Srinivasan has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. He says:

I have always wanted to join the LFHCFS. Over the past few years it has become as much of a goal as getting a PhD. Finally, after many months, nay, years of careful grooming and hard work, I feel qualified to submit my entry. In my research, I study developmental mechanisms underlying forebrain development in mice.

Shyam Srinivasan, LFHCfS
PhD candidate, Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, California, USA

An MIT student named Danny, pictured here, had non-luxuriant flowing hair. Reportedly, he has cut it off.

Danny is not a member of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS).

(Thanks to investigator Norine Bharan for bringing this to our attention.)

Merit Ptah has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists, as an historical honorary member. Ann Sasahara, who nominated her, says:

She was, possibly, the first recorded physician in the world (c. 2700 BCE). She was also the first woman in science to be known by name. She had gorgeous, long locks and she walked like an Egyptian.

Merit Ptah, LFHCfS
Medical researcher
Egypt

Tucker Jones has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. Liz George, who nominated him, says:

Tucker Jones has had luxuriant flowing hair for as long as I’ve known him. Not only is it beautiful, but it is also soft! He graduated from MIT with a BS in Physics and is now doing a PhD in Astronomy at Caltech. His luxuriant hair has helped him throughout his scientific career and has also helped convince many women to join the physics department at MIT.

Tucker Jones, LFHCfS
Graduate student, Astronomy
Caltech
Pasadena, California, USA

Margaret Mead has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists, as an historical honorary member. Ann Sasahara, who nominated her, says:

Margaret Mead (1901-1978) was an American cultural anthropologist, who moved us away from ethnocentric anthropological studies to less judgemental, more culturally-relativistic studies. She taught us that our culture has certain beliefs and other cultures have other beliefs; neither outlook is right or wrong, they are merely different. I love her fly-away locks.

Margaret Mead, Ph.D., LFHCfS
Cultural Anthropologist
Columbia University
New York City, USA