Science Comedy Spectacular!

It's time for the annual BrisScience science/comedy spectacular! We're hosting an evening of science and comedy in the style of the great panel shows (think Spicks and Specks and QI), as we take a lighter look at the top science stories of 2023 - and some of the quirkier ones too!

Join us as world-leading researchers and gifted comedians battle wits and wittiness, exploring everything from interstellar spacecraft to magnetic slimes.

Hosted by well-known figure of stage and science (and BrisScience!) Dr Joel Gilmore, you'll be guaranteed a night of entertainment, competition, and comedy - and perhaps even education! So secure your tickets early and join us in November.

Watch the recording

Meet the presenters

Dan Beeston first tread the boards at the Sit Down Comedy club in 1998. Since then he’s worked as a improvisational performer in comedy clubs all over Australia. He's an award-nominated writer of The Movie: The Play series of interactive theatre. He's a keen science advocate and currently co-hosts 'Smart Enough to Know Better', A Podcast of Science, Comedy and Ignorance. He had to take a break in the middle of writing this bio to explain evolution to a Jehovah's Witness at the door.

Dr Meagan Carney is a Lecturer in Mathematics at The University of Queensland. She completed her PhD in Mathematics at the University of Houston, and her postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Germany. Dr Carney's expertise lies in predicting extremes and rare events in complex systems, where she applies machine learning algorithms to assess the likelihood and impacts of events such as extreme weather occurrences and rare outcomes related to SARS-CoV-2. She is also passionate about science communication and is currently forming an archive with her partner dedicated to sharing cutting-edge research with the public through short, animated videos: The Modern Method.

Mehershad Wadia completed a Master’s in Molecular Biology from The University of Queensland in late 2019 and auspiciously graduated straight into a pandemic. Passionate about science and comedy, he has previously written for a show on Disney+ and is currently working at the Queensland Brain Institute studying neuronal regeneration.

Dr Christina Zdenek is a former Fulbright Fellow, former professional basketball player, a 2021 ABC Top 5 Scientist, and one of three Queensland ambassadors for Inspiring Australia. As an ecologist and toxinologist at UQ, she researches snake venoms and antivenoms, snake behaviour, snake ecology, and the human-snake conflict.

Associate Professor Marloes Dekker Nitert is a metabolic biochemist at UQ's School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences. She is passionate about improving pregnancy outcomes for mother and baby through understanding the interactions between the gut microbiome and metabolic and cardiovascular disease processes in pregnancy. She is also an advocate for women in STEM.

Greg Wah is one of the co-hosts of ‘Smart Enough To Know Better’. As a science communicator and professional idiot, Greg asks the smart people the hard questions others might feel too silly to ask.