dance your phd 2023 winner

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You can dance if you want to —

Meet the winners of the 2024 dance your phd contest, "one of the main messages i wanted to convey... is that differences lead to diversity.".

Jennifer Ouellette - Feb 29, 2024 5:31 pm UTC

We've been following the annual Dance Your PhD contest for several years now, delighting in the many creative approaches researchers have devised to adapt their doctoral theses into movement—from "nano-sponge" materials and superconductivity to the physics of atmospheric molecular clusters and the science of COVID-19. This year's winner is Weliton Menário Costa of the Australian National University for his thesis "Personality, Social Environment, and Maternal-level Effects: Insights from a Wild Kangaroo Population." His video entry, "Kangaroo Time," is having a bit of a viral moment, charming viewers with its catchy beat and colorful, quirky mix of dance styles and personalities—both human and kangaroo.

As we reported previously , the Dance Your PhD contest was established in 2008 by science journalist John Bohannon. It was previously sponsored by Science magazine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and is now sponsored by the AI company Primer, where Bohannon is the director of science. Bohannon told Slate in 2011 that he came up with the idea while trying to figure out how to get a group of stressed-out PhD students in the middle of defending their theses to let off a little steam. So he put together a dance party at Austria's  Institute of Molecular Biotechnology , including a contest for whichever candidate could best explain their thesis topics with interpretive dance.

The contest was such a hit that Bohannon started getting emails asking when the next would be—and Dance Your PhD has continued ever since. It's now in its 16th year. There are four broad categories: physics, chemistry, biology, and social science, with a fairly liberal interpretation of what topics fall under each. All category winners receive $750, while Costa, as the overall champion, will receive an additional $2,000.

Further Reading

A native of Brazil, Costa earned a PhD in ecology from ANU in 2021 after spending several years studying eastern gray kangaroos, using a remote-controlled car to determine their distinct personalities. For example, some were bold and would approach the car out of curiosity; others were shyer and would avoid the car. Among his chief findings: Kangaroos like to socialize in groups but prefer smaller social circles. Kangaroo personalities emerge early, just like in humans, with mothers, offspring, and siblings often having similar personalities. But their personalities are also somewhat flexible; kangaroos will adjust their behavior based on social cues from the kangaroos around them.

When it came time to translate his research into movement, Costa decided to represent the rich diversity of kangaroo behavior with an equally diverse collection of dancers and dance styles: classical ballet, Brazilian funk, and urban styles, to name a few. Everyone was free to improvise their moves, with the only instruction being to mingle with others and slowly unify as a group. Costa joined in, adapting his dance style throughout to match other dancers, thus mimicking how kangaroos adapt their personalities to fit into a group. There's even a behind-the-scenes video, which you can watch here .

"There was a sense of surprise and delight in it," visual artist Alexa Meade, one of the content judges, told Science about why they selected Costa's entry. "You could tell they were having fun through the process, that it wasn't this labored, stressful experience."

Costa is the first ANU researcher to win the contest and only the fourth Australian. "I think it not only shows the incredible might of the research conducted here in Australia but also how creative we are as a nation. Even us scientists," Costa said of his win. "One of the main messages I wanted to convey through this piece of work is that differences lead to diversity, and this is evident throughout the entire video. It's evident with the different dancers that herald from various cultures and backgrounds." Costa is pursuing music as "Dr. WELI," and "Kangaroo Time" is one of four songs on his debut EP, Yours Academically, Dr. WELI . But he'll still be working at ANU as a visiting fellow until early 2025.

Check out the winners of the chemistry, physics, and biology categories on the next page.

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Program: ANU scientist wins global 'Dance Your PhD' competition

Program: RN Breakfast

Brought to you by

There are a raft of awards that any serious research scientist covets such as a Nobel Prize or the Australian Museum Eureka Prize. But a PhD graduate from the ANU has hopped away with a prestigious international award.

Dr Weliton Menário Costa, who goes by WELI, is the winner of Dance Your PhD awarded for communicating his academic research on behaviour through song and dance.

Guest: WELI ( Dr Weliton Menário Costa), global winner of the 2024 Dance Your PhD contest

Image Details

WELI (Dr Weliton Menario Costa) on set for Kangaroo Time and on RN Breakfast ( Supplied: ANU / ABC )

RN Breakfast, 28th February 2024

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Jive to the Academic Beat With This Year’s “Dance Your Ph.D.” Winners

Sometimes explaining complex scientific research requires a cow doing the worm, glittering e. coli and an immune cell with a killer plie

Jason Daley

Correspondent

Many scientists know the pain of meeting a stranger at cocktail party or sitting down at Thanksgiving and getting this question: So, what’s your research about?

Though trying to distil the function of mRNA in gene expression into a few minutes of intelligible chit chat may seem as hard as earning a Ph.D., the ability to communicate complex research to the general public is of the utmost importance.

So to help academics everywhere, American Association for the Advancement of Science launched the annual “Dance Your Ph.D.” contest . Now in it’s ninth year, the contest requires grad students translate their often complex research into a new format, giving them a different perspective on their work and a chance to communicate their findings with the public. It’s also fun.

This year’s winner, biomedical engineering student Jacob Brubert  of Cambridge University explained the intricacies of his research developing a new biocompatible artificial heart valve using a salsa dancing cow and pig, tap dancers, and funky surgeon, hula-hoops and overexcited polymers. The video took “some very willing friends” a few weekends to produce, but it earned Brubert $1,000 and a trip to Boston next year to present his video at the AAAS meeting. “My adviser thought I was crazy, but he was supportive,” Brubert, now at Oxford, says in the press release.

The winning entry in the biology category comes from Carla Brown at the University of Glasgow, who illustrates the development of antibiotic resistance using glitter-covered modern dancers to represent infectious bacteria engaging in dance fights with antibiotics not seen since the first Zoolander .

In the social sciences category, Margaret Danilovich of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine speeds up and slows down Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” as dancers progressively stiffen while popping and locking to show the effects of muscle loss during aging. Training caregivers to help their patients exercise, however, helps improve frailty and quality of life, the dance shows, resulting in a chair dance between a caregiver and an “elderly” patient at the end.

Evgeny Sogorin of the Institute of Protein Research in Moscow, winner of the chemistry category, shows the highly choreographed way ribosomes prevent “jamming up” while moving along DNA strands to express genes through ballroom dance. The black-and-white film with caption cards in between scenes is reminiscent of a silent movie. But the most impressive feat is convincing so many friends to dress in tuxedos.

The people’s choice award went to Emmanuelle Alaluf of the Free University of Brussels. Her study on myeloid-derived heme oxygenase-1 helps explain how cancer cells avoid detection by the body’s t-cells and immune system. Her video, which looks like a charming low-budget version of Swan Lake , captures the gist of this complex process.

Last year, the prize went to Florence Metz who danced around with a giant snifter of contaminated water to represent all the parties involved in creating water policy. In 2014, biologist Uma Nagendra performed circus aerials to explain her research on how tornadoes negatively impact parasitic fungus, allowing tree seedlings to grow.

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Jason Daley | | READ MORE

Jason Daley is a Madison, Wisconsin-based writer specializing in natural history, science, travel, and the environment. His work has appeared in Discover , Popular Science , Outside , Men’s Journal , and other magazines.