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Watch The Winners Of The 'Dance Your Ph.D' Contest Make Cloud Formation Catchy

Barry Gordemer

Turns out that of all geeks in the world, scientists may rank as the most interpretive dancers – especially when there's a contest involved.

That's the basic premise of a dance competition called "Dance Your Ph.D." It's the brainchild of John Bohannon, a scientist who studies microbiology and artificial intelligence. The idea is to get scientists to explain their research through dance. The contest has been around for 14 years. It's run by Science Magazine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and also sponsored by Primer, an artificial intelligence company where Bohannon works.

" We had 40 dances this year, " Bohannon tells NPR's Morning Edition . "Scientists come out of the woodwork all around the world and write their own lyrics, do their own dance moves. It's just next level."

Ph.D. Student Breaks Down Electron Physics Into A Swinging Musical

The winning entry came from three atmospheric science graduate students at the University of Helsinki. They created a rap video, complete with choreography — and a breakdown as well as a catchy chorus — to explain how clouds are formed.

"They used drone footage, they used comedy, they used costumes. It's a very polished piece of art," Bohannon says. "But it's also good science. They explained something really complicated, but I would have enjoyed watching that video even if it wasn't about science."

Bohannon says the judging was done by a panel of scientists, artists and dancers.

"The way they're scored is on three dimensions: scientific merit, artistic merit and then, how well they brought it all together – how well did they combine science and art," he says.

One of Bohannon's favorite videos this year came from a French science student, Fanon Julienne. She used two teams of belly dancers to explain the way plastic breaks down and pollutes water.

"She's really using the dance to explain the physical mechanisms. You can't always do that. But every once in a while, you have a subject where you can actually explain it with your body and I think she pulled that off really well," Bohannon says.

The competition's inception dates back to 2006. Bohannon was organizing a New Year's Eve gathering with some friends and wanted it to be a dance party.

"It's very hard to get anyone to dance, particularly scientists. Their parties are not on the dancey side," he says.

So, Bohannon turned it into a contest.

"One thing you can count on with scientists is they're competitive and they have a sense of humor about their work so I thought, let's just put it all together."

Dance Your Ph.D is broken down into four categories: biology, chemistry, physics and social sciences. This year's competition included a special new category: COVID-19 research.

The winning COVID-19 video was produced by Heather Masson-Forsythe of Corvallis, Ore., who used dance to explain how to stop the coronavirus from replicating.

"She's capturing not only the science and explaining it, but she's also capturing what it's like to solve scientific mysteries in tiny little droplets of liquid. That's just really cool," Bohannon says.

For claiming the top prize, the grad students from Helsinki won $2,000 — but more importantly, Bohannon says, they have achieved "Internet geek fame."

"You know when you're Internet geek famous for dancing your Ph.D, that's never gonna go away," he says. "It becomes your calling card."

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The Many Ways to “Dance Your Ph.D”

Once again, researchers get creative in a yearly dance competition to explain their Ph.D. thesis work

Maris Fessenden

Former correspondent

Communicating scientific research can get challenging, but doctoral candidates spend years delving into the minutia of phenomena in biology, astronomy, chemistry or another field. It would be a shame for that work to stay locked up in the pages of journals, only to be appreciated by other experts. That’s why some researchers jump—and leap, spin or plié —at the chance to reach a wider audience with the Dance Your Ph.D. contest.

Every year, the American Association for the Advancement of Science hosts the contest and doles out $2500 worth in prizes to the winners in four categories: physics, chemistry, biology and social sciences. The best dance overall gets a trip to Stanford University. Past winners included dances that explored sperm competition and an arial interpretation of how tornados affect Appalachian mountain ecosystems .

For this year, the 8th annual contest, the top prize was scooped up by the winner of the social sciences category for the first time, reports John Bohannon for Science . Florence Metz of the University of Bern in Switzerland combined hip hop, salsa and acrobatic dancing styles to represent groups fighting over and then discussing water use and protection. In the video, Metz likens successful water policies to the choreography that helps unite diverse dancers.

Metz's dance was chosen from 32 teams’ submissions . Twelve entries made it to the final round . The other three category winners included, for physics, a tango explaining how photon pairs can be used in quantum information experiments.

The chemistry prize was awarded to a dance illustrating how white blood cells called neutrophils form toxic nets that destroy invading bacteria and other disease-causing agents. 

Finally, for biology, the award went to a co-choreographed performance about a molecule called tropoelastin’s interactions with cells to create an elastic scaffold for tissues like skin and arteries.

All the performances showcase the drama and excitement inherent in typically invisible processes of the body and the world. It just takes some creativity (and moves) to bring them to life.

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Maris Fessenden | | READ MORE

Maris Fessenden is a freelance science writer and artist who appreciates small things and wide open spaces.

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‘Joyful madness’: ANU scientist wins global prize for ‘dancing his PhD’ about kangaroos

Four-minute video features drag queens, twerking, ballerinas, a classical Indian dancer and a bunch of friends from Canberra

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The former Canberra scientist Dr Weliton Menário Costa, who now goes by the name Weli, said it “felt like winning Eurovision” when he learned he had won the global “Dance Your PhD” competition, for his quirky interpretive take on kangaroo behaviour.

His four-minute video titled Kangaroo Time features drag queens, twerking, ballerinas, a classical Indian dancer, and a bunch of friends Weli acquired from his time studying at the Australian National University.

The video collected the top prize awarded annually by the American Association for the Advancement of Science , Science magazine, and San Francisco-based artificial intelligence company Primer.ai.

The competition encourages scientists to explain complex research to the wider public through dance, music and humour, and attracts dozens of entries from around the world each year.

“It’s super incredible,” Weli told the Guardian on Tuesday. “To win an international science competition, it’s like Eurovision – except we all have PhDs.

“It’s actually a real challenge, communicating research results and making a clear link between science and the performing arts. In Eurovision, you can do anything you want.”

Kangaroo Time narrowly beat an entry from the University of Maine, in which a second-year ecology and environmental science PhD student used the music of Camille Saint-Saëns’s Danse Macabre to convey her research on the invasive browntail moth.

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Weli collected more than A$4,000 (US$2,750), winning the overall prize and the social sciences prize; it was the fourth time an Australian entry had won in the competition’s 17-year history.

In 2009, a University of Sydney entry won for a dance about the use of vitamin D to protect against diabetes. Two years later, a University of Western Australia entry won for a video about why orthopaedic implants fail; and the following year, a University of Sydney entry won once again for a work explaining the “evolution of nanostructural architecture in 7000 series aluminium alloys during strengthening by age-hardening and severe plastic deformation”.

Weli based his entry on his four-year PhD study on animal behaviour, in a video Science magazine described as “joyful madness”. The judging panel of scientists, artists and dancers praised Kangaroo Time for its “sense of surprise and delight” and its accessible explanation of the science of marsupial group dynamics.

Using a remote-controlled car, the ANU graduate studied the behavioural differences and complex personalities of a group of more than 300 wild eastern grey kangaroos in Victoria.

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He found that like humans, kangaroos’ personalities develop in early life and often mirror the personalities of their parents and siblings; he found they take social cues from the group dynamic, and form social circles like humans too.

His conclusion: “Difference leads to diversity. It exists within any given species, it is just natural.”

The Brazilian-born biologist, who gained a scholarship from ANU in 2017, said he drew on his South American roots and a fascination with Australia’s unique fauna to write, produce and perform in the work.

A queer immigrant from a developing country, Weli said he could relate to how the kangaroos modified their behaviour to conform to the wider group.

“I come from a very humble family, a small town where most of the people are not educated,” he said, of his conservative upbringing. “When I came to Australia I came out to my family … in Kangaroo Time I celebrate diversity in my beautiful Canberra community that [mirrors] kangaroo behaviour.”

Since completing his PhD in Canberra in 2021, Weli has abandoned his academic science career and moved his home base to Sydney, where he is seeking to establish himself as a singer-songwriter.

His first EP – Yours Academically, Dr Weli – will be out 1 March.

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"One small nanoparticle to rule them all" —

Tiny “nano-sponges” inspire killer moves in 2023 dance your phd winning video, the fun side of serious science: "we’re just normal, fun, creative people.”.

Jennifer Ouellette - Mar 20, 2023 6:26 pm UTC

University of Oregon chemist Checkers Marshall took top honors in the 2023 Dance Your PhD contest, combining hand fans, blue balloons, and original lyrics to make a dance video explaining their work on "nano-sponge" materials for use in carbon capture and drug delivery. Other winning videos provided creative takes on how local trees in the Amazon rainforest produce a protective hormone in response to drought; diffusing ions at the nanoscale, illustrated with a tango; and an artificial intelligence model called PsychGenerator that aims to bring personality and mental health attributes to AI.

As we've 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 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 15th year. There are four broad categories: physics, chemistry, biology, and social science, with a fairly liberal interpretation of what topics fall under each. Winners were chosen from 28 entries submitted from 12 different countries. All category winners receive $500, while Marshall, as the overall champion, will receive an additional $2,000. And the contest has a new sponsor this year: Sandbox AQ , an Alphabet spinoff focused on tackling large problems by bringing together artificial intelligence and quantum technologies.

Marshall's PhD thesis dealt with metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), crystalline polymer materials formed by binding metal ions with polydentate organic linkers. The resulting porous network is sponge-like, making these materials ideal for carbon capture applications, as well as drug delivery, detoxifying nerve agents, and water purification. Marshall aims to make smaller and more efficient MOFs. These nano-MOFs can be modified by adding a molecule to stop the crystal's growth or removing an electron to free up the flow of electrons through the structure.

Marshall shot their video in the lab and a friend's backyard. They brought high school and college videomaking experience to the project, as well as a long-standing love of juggling, spinning, and other forms of "flow arts." For instance, Marshall used fans to represent the electrons in a standard MOF—“I can’t dance unless there’s something in my hands"—passing the fans back and forth with a friend to show how metal ions (represented by blue papier-mâché balloons) exchange electrons.

To represent the nano-MOFs, Marshall used a toy Hoberman sphere , a popular child's toy inspired by the isokinetic structure patented by artist and engineer Chuck Hoberman. It looks like a geodesic dome, but thanks to joints that act like scissors, the sphere can fold into a fraction of its original size.

Marshall even wrote their own music, having written and performed slam poetry for years, complete with a sly reference to The Lord of the Rings trilogy. “I thought, ‘How can I make my thesis into a one-page slam poem? How can I make it, like, sound cool? And hopefully make it rhyme a little bit,’” Marshall told Science . “Making the video and writing my thesis were approximately an equal amount of work. [But these initiatives] really help aspiring scientists see this other side of science where we’re also just normal, fun, creative people.”

Check out the winners of the biology, physics, and social sciences categories below.

Biology category winner

Israel Sampaio Filho, National Institute of Amazonian Research, Leaf abscisic acid (ABA) biosynthesis: the main source of Amazon rainforest response to warming

Physics category winner

Dr. Evgenii Glushkov, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, Exploring optically active defects in wide-bandgap materials using fluorescence microscopy

Social Sciences category winner

Huy Vu, Stony Brook University, Artificial Intelligence with Personality

Listing image by Checkers Marshal

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Astrophysics student Xiaohan Wu uses a choreographed ballet dance to explain the physics behind the early universe.

Photo by Ana Maria Delgado

Turning photons into pirouettes

Nadia Whitehead

CfA Communications

Xiaohan Wu explains the physics behind photons in the early universe and wins ‘Dance Your Ph.D.’ competition

En pointe and in a poufy pink tutu, Xiaohan Wu gracefully leaps across the marled dance floor. She stoops, collects an intricate hand fan and proceeds to twirl, delicately waving the fan back and forth as she spins.

But this is not a recital and Wu is no dance student. She’s a graduate astronomy student who has created an interpretative dance explaining her research on the early universe — and she’s clearly got chops.

On Thursday, Wu was named the winner of the physics category of “ Dance Your Ph.D .,” an international competition hosted by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Science magazine. The competition challenges graduate students and those with Ph.D.s to turn their complex doctoral theses into dances that the general public can understand.

The contest, now in its 14th year, is divided into four categories: biology, chemistry, physics, and social sciences, and is judged by a panel of dancers, scientists, and artists who watch a recording of the dance.

Wu, who is set to graduate this May, says she participated in the competition because it is her final year at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J_9_m4Dgkk

“I just felt like I should do this video as a tribute to astronomy and as a proper end to my Ph.D.,” she said.

During her time at the Center for Astrophysics, Wu studied the epoch of reionization, a period about 12 billion years ago when the first stars and galaxies began to form, lighting up the utterly dark universe.

In her choreographed dance, Wu plays one of many photons — or particles of light — that are emitted from the first star. As the photons begin to travel outwards from the star, they encounter a thick gas that contains neutral hydrogen atoms. These atoms act as a barrier, preventing the light from traveling further outwards.

But when a photon and hydrogen atom eventually interact — conveyed by Wu picking up a hand fan and twirling with it in the dance — the hydrogen atom loses an electron and becomes positively charged or ionized.

This small dance between the two particles is transformational for the early universe. Time after time, newly emitted photons from newly formed stars interact with neutral hydrogen atoms, allowing light to escape farther and travel freely throughout the universe.

The result is a universe that is not cold, dark, and neutral, but bright, ionized and hot.

The judges of “Dance Your Ph.D.” say this year’s competition winners used movement creatively to clearly explain their research.

“The science enhances the dance, and the dance enhances the science,” said judge Emily Kent from the dance company Pilobolus.

Wu, who loves ballet as much as she loves astronomy, learned to dance when she was very little but took a lengthy hiatus and only picked it up again a few years ago.

“I think it’s just beautiful and I love seeing myself improve,” she says.

After graduating in May, Wu will join the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics as a postdoctoral researcher — and she plans to continue dancing.

“It happens to every amateur ballet dancer I’ve met,” she says. “Once you get into this business and start taking it seriously, there’s no way out and you just take it more seriously over time.”

Wu received assistance with choreography, props, and filming from flamenco dancer and fellow astronomy student Ana Maria Delgado, who jumped at the chance to help.

“Since beginning my Ph.D., I get very few opportunities to make art,” Delgado says. “I, too, have danced most of my life and the truth is, we  need  to make art.”

The two spent about two weeks choreographing the dance and storyline, practicing in the CfA’s Phillips Auditorium in early January. A week later, they knocked out the filming in one afternoon.

“We came up with a very ambitious piece that Xiaohan worked so hard on and it came out beautifully,” Delgado says. “This really is a labor of love and she deserves this prize!”

As winner of the physics category, Wu will receive a prize of $750.

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ANU academic and singer-songwriter WELI wins global competition for music video about kangaroo socialisation

A Brazilian academic has won the global Dance Your PhD award for an elaborately produced and choreographed video explaining his academic work studying social behaviour in kangaroos.

A global expert in kangaroo socialisation, 32-year-old Weliton Menário Costa of the Australian National University (ANU) wrote and directed the music video Kangaroo Time (Club Edit).

The Dance Your PhD contest challenges researchers around the world to explain their research in a simple, effective and engaging way to bridge the gap between the scientific community and the general public.

"Winning this contest is the equivalent of winning Eurovision for me," Dr Costa said.

"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."

He is the first person from ANU to win the Dance Your PhD competition, and just the fourth person from an Australian institution to do so since the competition began in 2008.

Known creatively as WELI, the singer-songwriter and biologist's winning video includes a funky beat and features a variety of performers including drag queens, classical ballet dancers, urban street dancers and Brazilian funk dancers.

WELI said including this diversity of performers from a variety of disciplines and cultures was important to reflect the spectrum of personality present in kangaroo populations — the key finding of his research.

"Using diversity to communicate results has been so effective, it makes it so easy for people to clearly see differences when you actually, genuinely sample the differences," he said.

Using a remote-controlled car WELI spent over three years studying the spectrum of behavioural differences in a group of more than 300 wild eastern grey kangaroos in Victoria.

"We found that kangaroos like to socialise in groups but prefer smaller social circles. Like humans, kangaroo personalities manifest early in life," he said.

"Mothers and their offspring have similar personalities, and so do siblings.

"Kangaroos are very socially aware and will adjust their behaviour based off cues from other roos."

WELI moved from Brazil to Brisbane in 2013 on a Science Without Borders scholarship for undergrad, and after returning to Brazil two years later decided he missed Australia and began applying for PhD positions in the country — eventually landing his kangaroo research with the ANU in 2017.

He said on the surface Kangaroo Time is science communication about his research utilising the creative arts medium, but the video is also a representation of his time in Australia.

"Kangaroo Time is my Australia time, it's the time I came out and lived as a gay man in the workplace for the first time in my life," WELI said.

"I tried to bring all these different aspects of my background — so the Latino WELI, queer WELI, the scientist WELI, the WELI that's popular but [also] the WELI that is sad.

"There is a very important part of the lyrics that say 'you're surrounded by mates, are you feeling alright?' which shows that sometimes you're in social spaces but you're not feeling quite well."

WELI said his decision to apply for a PhD studying socialisation in mammals came from his upbringing in a conservative space as a queer man and noticing the differences in his behaviour while with others as opposed to alone.

"I think that all comes down from me being queer in a conservative space where I've always felt it's suffocating influence of the people around me, and that was shaping my behaviour in a way that didn't necessarily match what I actually want to be or express."

WELI said at the core of his video is a message of inclusivity and diversity — something he hopes will be the main takeaway for viewers.

"As a queer immigrant from a linguistically diverse developing country, I understand the challenges of feeling disconnected in certain environments," he said.

"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.

"I think it's extremely important that we celebrate diversity and creating a video explaining kangaroo personality was an excellent medium for me to do this."

After winning the competition WELI plans to stay both in the academic and creative spaces, with a new EP called Yours Academically, Dr WELI being released soon and plans to continue working at ANU as a Visiting Fellow until early 2025.

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UWA student wins international ‘Dance your PhD’ competition

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First 2011 brought us a Nobel prize in Physics. Now Australia can also boast the winner of the Science Magazine “ Dance your PhD ” award.

University of Western Australia PhD student Joel Miller has taken out the top prize in the contest, which invited doctoral students across the world to explain their PhDs through interpretive dance.

Entrants were asked to record their performances and upload them to the web.

Miller, who is one year into his PhD, defeated a field of 55 contenders – and all without a video camera. His entry is composed of 2200 animated still images.

“We didn’t have a video camera, instead I have a digital SLR. I got to thinking there were big opportunites to use stop-motion,” Miller said.

The video – which carries the catchy title, “Microstructure-Property relationships in Ti2448 components produced by Selective Laser Melting: A Love Story” – details Miller’s research into alternative titanium knee and hip replacement materials.

“Typically hip and knee replacements last for around 15 years before they need replacing. The main cause of that is that the bone deteriorates and the implants pull out,” he said.

“My research is into how to use new materials that are less stiff, and designs of implants that are more flexible.”

“Hopefully this will reduce the number of revision surgeries that are necessary, because revision surgery is very painful, and very inconvenient for the patient.”

While Miller’s victory in this light-hearted competition may seem incidental to serious academic pursuits, it has actually afforded him new opportunities to further his research.

He will be flown to Belgium next month to participate in media conference TedxBrussels , a trip that will enable him to connect with leaders in his field.

“I’ll also be attending a manufacturing conference in Frankfurt, and visiting one of the world leaders in titanium in Birmingham as well,” he said.

“Basically, winning the prize allows me to take some other opportunities I wouldn’t otherwise have had.”

And more than that, for Miller, the nature of the contest reveals some basic truths about science communication.

“This competition definitely gives exposure to complicated scientific concepts and amazing research around the world. I think it’s very valuable being able to communicate science to everybody.”

His video is below. Enjoy.

Microstructure-Property relationships in Ti2448 components produced by Selective Laser Melting: A Love Story from Joel Miller on Vimeo .

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Video: And the winner of the “Dance your PhD” award goes to…

It’s difficult for many to succinctly sum up several years of intricate work, but it doesn’t have to be so hard. So the next time a PhD student is asked to explain their work, they should answer with a dance. Hundreds of other scientists already have.

Dozens of PhD students from a variety of scientific discipline enter the annual competition—the “ Dance your PhD ” contest is now in its eighth year—in hopes of winning $2,500 in prizes and a trip to Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. There are four categories: physics, chemistry, biology, and social sciences, with the best dance overall awarded the trip to Stanford.

This year’s winner combines hip-hop, salsa, and acrobatics to explore the relationship between policies and effective water protection. Florence Metz, of the University of Bern in Switzerland, is the first winner of the social sciences category to win the top prize.

In the video, the different dancing styles represent different political groups, which fight over how to achieve effective water protection policies. The final choreography incorporates styles of all the dance groups, which illustrates the impact of dialogue in creating successful water policy.

Metz scooped the top prize from 31 other submissions  this year. This year’s biology category was awarded to Pearl Lee, from the University of Sydney, who showcased her ballet skills to explain her PhD research on a molecule called tropoelastin.

The physics prize went to Merritt Moore, from Oxford University, who explored the properties of quantum mechanics with a tango.

And the chemistry prize was awarded to Jyaysi Desai, a PhD student at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, for an elaborate Bollywood dance to explain the role of the innate immune cells—called neutrophils— in dealing with different diseases.

Previous winners have included an interpretive dance to explain sperm competition.

And who says academics are out of touch with the real world?

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Weliton Menário Costa of the Australian National University won the 2024 Dance Your PhD contest with "Kangaroo Time."

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.

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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Can't wait for the next aurora borealis to dance across the sky? You're in luck.

The recent aurora borealis left viewers across North America awestruck – and laden with photos and videos – over the May 11 weekend and had everyone asking: When can I see the Northern Lights again?

Impatient skywatchers in the U.S. may not have to wait long.

The recent eye-catching spectacle, caused by strong geomagnetic storms from sunspots on the sun, may continue to reappear more often over the next few years thanks to the "solar maximum," which will occur next year, USA TODAY reported.

Activity will increase as we approach the next peak of solar activity, which will be in July 2025 , NASA says.

How solar max will affect the Earth's magnetic field

Every 11 years, the sun goes through a "solar cycle." A cycle is the increase and decrease in the number of sunspots observed on the sun. With the number of sunspots, there's an increase in solar flares and plasma energy and other types of space weather. Large eruptions on the sun send bursts of energy and material toward Earth.

According to predictions made by NASA scientists, the solar maximum, or the next peak in solar activity, will occur in July 2025. As a result, the northern lights will start to get stronger and more frequent as the solar maximum approaches.

Current solar cycle beginning

Scientists monitor the development of the solar cycle and sunspots. These dark spots on the sun are signs of solar activity and frequently serve as the starting point for the massive explosions that can shoot light, energy and solar material into space. These explosions include solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

"This material and radiation is what interacts with the Earth resulting in aurora," said Shannon Schmoll, the director of the Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University.

Earth's magnetic field is a protective shield

Earth's magnetic field creates an invisible barrier that shields us from the solar winds. The magnetic field of Earth occasionally becomes disrupted by stronger solar winds. Stunning auroras are created when the particle stream interacts with gases in the planet's magnetic field.

What causes the northern lights?

As the sun releases solar flares, it carries plasma particles toward the Earth.

Atoms in air molecules in Earth's magnetic field are stimulated when charged electrons from the sun collide with them. As the molecules settle, they emit light. Green and red light are emitted by oxygen. The color of nitrogen is blue and purple.

The University of Alaska and  NOAA  tracks auroras using the  Kp-index , a global auroral activity indicator which has a scale from 0 to 9. It measures the fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field, tied to specific geographic locations.

During very large auroral events, the display can be seen throughout the U.S. and Europe, but these events are rare. During an extreme event in 1958, the aurora was visible from Mexico City, the University of Alaska reported.

CONTRIBUTING Doyle Rice, USA TODAY