#19: Dr. Merritt Moore - Beauty Is Eternal

Quantum Physicist & Ballerina Dr. Merritt Moore: Beauty & Brains, Plus AI & Outer-space

What do you get when you mix ballet shoes with physics lab coats? Quantum Ballerina Dr. Merrit splits her time between scientific research and professional dancing and wants to be the first person to perform ballet in space.

“Everyone can put in hard work for an hour but can you put in hard work for days, months and years for hours, not knowing if it’s going to work out?” Merritt graduated from Harvard with cum laude honors in physics and obtained a PhD in Quantum Optics from Oxford. As a professional ballet dancer, she has danced with the Zurich Ballet, Boston Ballet, English National Ballet and Norwegian National Ballet and more performing things such as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake.

Recently, she was awarded a spot on Forbes 30 under 30 and was one of the final 12 candidates chosen to compete to become an astronaut in the BBC Two series, “Astronauts: Do you have what it takes?” She was invited to be the featured speaker at Forbes Women’s Summit in New York, has also appeared a panelist for the U.S. Embassy at the ‘Women in STEM’ panel in London.

Merritt works with a team of artists and researchers to synthesize science and art into breathtaking stage performances. She is famous for a romantic duet she performs with an industrial robot, a topic which she began to research at Harvard’s ArtLab. One of her interests is researching AI machine learning together with dance.

Why did Merritt became a physicist and a ballerina and ignore the people who told her she could not be both a scientist and a dancer? How she handle rejection, why does she invite critiques, and what are her plans for becoming an astronaut and dancing in space?

You can learn more about Merritt and contact her on her website physicsonpointe.com

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