When Peter J. "Pete" Ludovice was a graduate student in the 1980s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, there was a special name for women on campus.

"We called them visitors," he deadpans. An associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Georgia Tech, Ludovice's irreverent observational humor has been his trademark among students for the past dozen years.

Over the past two years, he has sought a wider audience for his "nerd comedy" as a stand-up comic at nightclubs and corporate meetings. This second career has earned the professor a special name of his own: Dr. Ludicrous, a stage name purportedly bestowed by students over unrealistic expectations on a statistics test.

"Teaching and comedy go hand in hand," Ludovice explains. "I like to teach, and I think anyone who enjoys teaching is probably also a natural-born ham."

It also could be argued that anyone who devotes research time to computer simulation to elucidate the relationship between atomic level structure and the properties of synthetic and biological macromolecules, as Ludovice does, needs a good laugh now and then.

Ludovice's dozens of performances include headlining at annual meetings of the American Chemical Society and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and stints at clubs throughout the Southeast, including the Punchline in Sandy Springs, Ga.

One of Ludovice's best-known routines is called "Pocket Protectors and Other Fashion Statements"