Christofer J. Clemente is an Australian scientist specialising in biomechanics. He is a Research Fellow in the School of Biological Sciences at the

University of Queensland , mottoeng = By means of knowledge and hard work , established = , endowment = A$224.3 million , budget = A$2.1 billion , type = Public research university , chancellor = Peter Varghese , vice_chancellor = Deborah Terry , city = B ...

and in 2011 was awarded a grant of A$375,000 for "Design of a biologically inspired running and climbing robotic lizard" by the

Australian Research Council The Australian Research Council (ARC) is the primary non-medical research funding agency of the Australian Government, distributing more than in grants each year. The Council was established by the ''Australian Research Council Act 2001'', ...

. He has a B.Sc. (2000) and Ph.D. (2006) from the

University of Western Australia The University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Perth, the state capital, with a secondary campus in Albany, Western Australia, Albany an ...

, his doctoral thesis being on "Evolution of Locomotion in Australian Varanid lizards (Reptilia: Squamata: Varanidae): Ecomorphological and ecophysiological considerations". He has held post-doctoral positions at

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

(2007-2009) and

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

(2010-2012). In October 2013 he appeared on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

's '' The Museum of Curiosity''. His hypothetical donation to this fictional museum was "a lizard popping a wheelie": he explained that when a

dragon lizard Agamidae is a family of over 300 species of iguanian lizards indigenous to Africa, Asia, Australia, and a few in Southern Europe. Many species are commonly called dragons or dragon lizards. Overview Phylogenetically, they may be sister to the I ...

reaches a certain running speed its front legs lift off the ground because they cannot match the speed of the back legs, so it acquires a bipedal gait, analogous to a bicycle's wheelie.

References

Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Australian physiologists Place of birth missing (living people) University of Western Australia alumni {{Australia-scientist-stub