Two Quinnipiac School of Health Sciences professors, Jerry Conlogue and Ron Beckett, were determined to go somewhere no other human had been. “Our goal has always been to make science fun,” says Conlogue, an associate professor in the diagnostic imaging program. “Unfortunately, a lot of times scientists are perceived as geeks who can’t have a good time.”

Enter “The Mummy Roadshow.” As hosts of this popular National Geographic Channel series, Conlogue (at right in photo) and Beckett (at left) were certainly having fun. Their episodes were shot all over the world. Using radiography and endoscopy, the researchers were able to explore mummies in a way that had never been done before.

“Without having to unwrap a mummy, without having to take them apart, we can learn about when they died, their sex, their cultural practices and sometimes the injuries and diseases that they may have had,” says Beckett, who chairs Quinnipiac’s Department of Cardiopulmonary Sciences and Diagnostic Imaging and directs its respiratory therapy program. “Jerry and I, with National Geographic’s support, were able to literally go places where people weren’t able to go before, so we thought those life experiences, those scientific experiences needed to be recorded.”

And they were. Recently, the duet published a book, “Mummy Dearest—How Two Guys in a Potato Chip Truck Changed the Way the Living See the Dead,” which details their journey both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

In a potato chip truck? Yes, literally. Conlogue can’t say no to a piece of X-ray equipment, so they needed a feasible way to carry their two sheds’ worth of gear around.  And the minute he saw an ad for a 1979 delivery truck with a faded “Charles Chips” sign, it all seemed to come together.

They have examined nearly 1,000 mummies, and yes, they still travel in the potato chip truck.