UW Major: Biochemistry
CEO, Generation Genius
During his sophomore year at the UW, Jeffrey Vinokur donned a rhinestone-studded lab coat and set up in an empty classroom in the old Chemistry Building. A crew from University Communications filmed him breaking open a glow stick and explaining how chemical reactions can sometimes emit light, a process known as chemiluminescence. Then he danced with glowing hands, and the “Dancing Scientist” was born.
Vinokur refined the act and submitted an audition tape to the 2010 season of America’s Got Talent. He was invited onto the show to perform among the top 100 contestants in Las Vegas, marking the first of what would soon become a long list of appearances on national TV. At the same time, Vinokur was also performing over a hundred live-science demonstrations each year for various school groups and events.
Though Vinokur had already established a popular dance channel on YouTube by the time he entered college, he learned the ropes of public science demonstrations from James Maynard, the director of the chemistry department’s Demonstration Lab, and chemistry professor Bassam Shakhashiri, who wrote the literal textbook on science demos for teachers. “Being able to learn from those people, who are among the pioneers of chemical demonstrations for teaching science, was really special,” Vinokur says.
At first, all that dancing around with exploding balloons and elephant toothpaste (a massive foam that occurs when hydrogen peroxide is combined with various catalysts) was mostly a hobby while Vinokur pursued a more formal path into biochemistry research. As the child of Russian immigrants, he felt a strong sense of duty to enter a steady career, and Vinokur had originally chosen UW–Madison not for its unique status as a chemistry-show training ground, but because he’d wanted to study biofuels at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center.
At UCLA, he won a graduate fellowship from the National Science Foundation to conduct enzyme research, and Vinokur hung up his rhinestone lab coat in order to focus on journal publications and his dissertation. Yet it wasn’t long before he felt a sense of regret about shelving his performance work just as he’d been gaining momentum. He realized his greatest professional fear wasn’t whether he would land on the traditional tenure track, but instead whether he would look back someday and wonder, “What if I had really gone for it? What if I’d really tried to become the Bill Nye the Science Guy for this generation?”
Vinokur completed his degree and found a business partner with close connections to the television industry. They launched Generation Genius, an education media company that creates high-quality, professionally produced science and math videos for elementary students. In 2018, Generation Genius received a $1 million grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and it didn’t take long for word about the fun videos to spread among students, teachers, and principals.
Generation Genius is now one of the of the fastest growing ed-tech start-ups in the United States, and Vinokur’s videos are currently shown in 30 percent of schools in the United States, with more subscribing every year. These days, the “Dancing Scientist” is better known among his young fans as Dr. Jeff, who reminds them during every video to “always question, always wonder.”
And, of course, to move your arms around like a robot while you do.