When former Canberra scientist Dr Welliton Menario Costa found out he had won the global Dance Your Doctorate competition for his quirky interpretation of kangaroo behavior, he said, “I won Eurovision.” I felt like that,” he said.
His four-minute video, titled Kangaroo Time, features drag queens, twerkers, ballerinas, classical Indian dancers and a host of friends Costa made while studying at the Australian National University .
This video attracted the annual top prize. American Association for the Advancement of ScienceScience magazine, and San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company Primer.ai.
The competition encourages scientists to explain complex research to the broader public through dance, music and humor, and attracts dozens of entries from around the world each year.
“It’s pretty incredible,” Costa told the Guardian on Tuesday. “To win an international science competition, like Eurovision, everyone has to have a PhD.
Communicating research results and making clear connections between science and performing arts is a real challenge. At Eurovision you can do whatever you want. ”
Kangaroo Time narrowly beat the University of Maine’s entry, in which a second-year doctoral student in ecology and environmental science used music from Camille Saint-Saëns’s “Dans Macabre” to convey her research on the invasive eastern brown moth. It broke.
Costa raised more than AU$4,000 (US$2,750) and won the overall award and the social science award. This is the fourth time in the competition’s 17-year history that an Australian entry has won.
In 2009, a Sydney University piece won for a dance about the use of vitamin D to prevent diabetes. Two years later, the University of Western Australia’s entry won with a video about why orthopedic implants fail. And the following year, the University of Sydney’s entry won again for a piece that described the “evolution of nanostructured structures in 7000 series aluminum alloys during strengthening by age hardening and severe plastic deformation.”
Costa published an entry based on four years of doctoral research into animal behavior that was described by the journal Video Science as “delightful madness.” A judging panel of scientists, artists and dancers praised Kangaroo Time’s “sense of wonder and delight” and easy-to-understand explanation of the science of marsupial population dynamics.
An ANU graduate used a remote-controlled car to study the behavioral differences and complex personalities of a group of more than 300 wild giant kangaroos in Victoria.
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He discovered that, like humans, kangaroos’ personalities develop during early childhood and often reflect the personalities of their parents and siblings. He discovered that they take social cues from group dynamics and form social circles just like humans.
His conclusion is: “Difference leads to diversity. It exists in every species and it is natural.”
The Brazilian-born biologist won a scholarship from ANU in 2017 and said he drew on his South American roots and fascination with Australia’s unique fauna to write, produce and perform in the piece. Ta.
Costa, a queer immigrant from a developing country, said he could relate to how kangaroos changed their behavior to fit the wider population.
“I come from a very modest family and live in a small town where most people are uneducated,” he said of his conservative upbringing. “When I came to Australia, I came out to my family and at Kangaroo Time we celebrate the diversity of our beautiful Canberra community. [mirrors] Kangaroo behavior. ”
Since completing his PhD in Canberra in 2021, Costa, known to friends as WELI, has given up his scientific career and moved to Sydney, where he plans to establish himself as a singer-songwriter. It is said that
Later this year, he will release his first EP, Yours Academically, Dr WELI.
