Watch This Year’s ‘Dance Your PhD’ Contest Winner, a Musical Celebration of Kangaroo Behavior

“Kangaroo Time” took home the competition’s overall prize, while interpretive dances on early life adversity, circadian rhythms and streambank erosion were also honored

Christian Thorsberg

Christian Thorsberg

Daily Correspondent

Weliton Menário Costa dances in the foreground of a grassy plain, while background dancers dressed in orange dance behind him.

An Australian landscape filled with kangaroos, drag queens, ballerinas and twerking may sound like the onset of a fever dream or a carnival—but for Weliton Menário Costa , a behavioral ecologist at Australian National University who goes by Weli, it was the perfect way to create and share a song about marsupial behavior.

“ Kangaroo Time ,” a four-minute music video about Weli’s years studying eastern gray kangaroos in Victoria, is as fun as it is informative—one of the reasons why it was named the overall winner of this year’s “ Dance Your PhD ” competition.

“It’s super incredible,” Weli tells the Guardian ’s Kelly Burke. “To win an international science competition, it’s like Eurovision—except we all have PhDs.”

Though it might sound unreal, the dancing contest for scientists is “ totally serious .” Weli’s winning video explains his thesis research, “ Personality, Social Environment and Maternal-Level Effects: Insights from a Wild Kangaroo Population .” In his work, Weli found that kangaroos develop their personalities early in life , create social groups and dynamics just as humans do and are influenced to act in similar ways as their parents and siblings. As a queer immigrant to Australia, he tells the Guardian that he can relate to how kangaroos modify their behavior in different groups.

“Differences lead to diversity,” he concludes in “Kangaroo Time.” “It exists within any given species; it is just natural.”

The video’s message resonated with the judges, both scientifically and artfully. “There was a sense of surprise and delight in [‘Kangaroo Time’],” judge Alexa Meade tells Science ’s Sean Cummings. “You could tell they were having fun through the process, that it wasn’t this labored, stressful experience.”

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The origins of the “Dance Your PhD” competition can be traced to New Year’s Eve in 2006, when John Bohannon —a microbiologist and director of science at artificial intelligence company Primer—hosted a dance party for his colleagues and friends. The only problem: hardly anyone wanted to boogie.

“It’s very hard to get anyone to dance, particularly scientists,” Bohannon told NPR ’s Barry Gordemer in 2021. “Their parties are not on the dancey side.”

So, like any scientist, he designed an experiment—or, in this case, a dance contest—based on a hypothesis. “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,” he said to NPR.

The first official contest took place in 2008, and it has been organized every year since by Science magazine and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For 16 years the competition has made its enduring pitch to scientists globally: “Don’t you wish you lived in a world where you could just ask people to pull out their phones to watch an online video explaining your PhD research through interpretive dance?”

Evidently, many do—dozens of videos each year are submitted to the contest, in four categories of biology, chemistry, physics and social science. Science communication skills are key to a successful video, striking a balance between creativity and sharing new findings.

Weliton Menário Costa, wearing a boa, stands holding a laptop with binoculars around his neck; on the left is a drag queen, looking at the laptop, and two dancers, dressed in purple and black respectively, stand on the right, also looking at the screen.

“It’s actually a real challenge, communicating research results and making a clear link between science and the performing arts,” Weli tells the Guardian .

Weli took home the overall winner’s purse of $2,000, in addition to his $750 social science category prize. The three other winning videos this year focused on how adversity in early life can affect how genes work ( Siena Dumas Ang , Princeton University), treating the loss of neurons by targeting a protein involved with the circadian rhythm ( Xuebing Zhang , City University of Hong Kong) and streambank erosion ( Layla El-Khoury , North Carolina State University). In the social science category, the runner-up behind the kangaroos was a video on the invasive browntail moth  in Maine.

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Past overall winners have included atmospheric scientists from the University of Helsinki in Finland rapping about cloud formations ; a swing dance about superconductivity from a researcher at the University of Victoria in Canada; and a stylized music video about yeast cells from a researcher at Vilnius University in Lithuania.

For Weli, one of his most meaningful breakthroughs was with his grandmother, who didn’t quite understand his thesis until recently.

“Once I released ‘Kangaroo Time,’ she was like, ‘That’s my grandson! I get it now!’” he tells Science .

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Christian Thorsberg

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Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago. His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue , Sierra  magazine, Discover  magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal .

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Weliton Menario Costa and drag artist Faux Née Phish, who performed in Kangaroo Time.

‘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”.

Dr Weliton Menário Costa’s video was described as ‘joyful madness’ by Science magazine

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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"I'm the first author, you're just et al." —

Meet this year’s winners of the dance your phd contest, this year's contest also featured a special award for best covid-19-related dance..

Jennifer Ouellette - Mar 3, 2021 3:00 pm UTC

The global pandemic ruined most of our plans for 2020, but it couldn't keep graduate students around the world from setting their thesis research to dance, submitting videos produced in strict adherence to local COVID-19 restrictions. With a little help from his friends Ivo Neefjes and Vitus Besel, Jakub Kubecka, a Finnish graduate student, won the contest with a rap-based dance about the physics of atmospheric molecular clusters. Incorporating computer animation and drone footage, Kubecka beat out 40 other contestants to take top honors (and win the physics category).

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 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.

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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 thirteenth year. There are four broad categories: physics, chemistry, biology, and social science, with a fairly liberal interpretation of what topics fall under each.

Over the years, the quality of the videos has improved a bit—Bohannon recalled the first year's winning video just had a postdoc chasing after a couple of graduates to demonstrate mouse genetics—as have the prizes offered. The overall winner now gets $2,000 (a princely sum for most grad students), along with a bit of geek glory, with the individual category winners snagging $750 each. The winner of the COVID-19 dance waltzed away with $500.

According to Kubecka, he co-wrote the music for his video with Neefjes and Besel and initially balked at the prospect of singing/rapping himself. "To prepare for recording the lyrics, I was running with headphones playing the music at least 30 times per day for the whole month to get it into my blood,"  he said . "I think that I even dreamed about it." Once the music was recorded and the dance choreographed, the team had to get permission to film the accompanying video—just as the COVID-19 situation in Finland was worsening.

The trio changed their plans so that they would never be in the same room with more than two additional people (an actor and a camera man) for the indoor footage. They performed a good chunk of the video outside, however. "In our infinite wisdom, we had decided that we would only wear short sleeve shirts throughout the video, which the Finnish winter weather made us suffer for," said Kubecka. "Each outdoor shot started with us throwing away our jackets just off screen, performing the choreography, and then running to get our jackets again." The radar at the local Finnish meteorological institute also interfered occasionally with the drone signal ("sometimes it would just fly away to the Baltic Sea"). But they persevered, and now they have $2,500 in prize money to show for their efforts.

In the remaining categories, Fanon Julienne, a postdoc at the University of Le Mans in France,  won the biology prize with her dance illustrating her thesis, entitled "Fragmentation of plastics: effect of the environment and the nature of the polymer on the size and the shape of generated fragments." Recent MIT PhD Mikael Minier, now a software engineer at WaveXR in Los Angeles, California, won the chemistry prize for his interpretation of his thesis on "Biomimetic Carboxylate-Bridged Diiron Complexes: From Solution Behavior to Modeling the Secondary Coordination Sphere." Magdalena Dorner-Pau, a postdoc at the University of Graz in Austria,  won the social sciences prize for a thesis entitled "Playful (De)Scribers: Examination of performative methods for the promotion of descriptive skills of children in linguistically diverse elementary school classes using the example of image description."

As for the COVID-19 research prize , Heather Masson Forsythe, a graduate student at Oregon State University, won that category with an interpretive dance—performed solo on a beach, in the corridor outside her lab, and in the woods, among other locales—inspired by her thesis research on "Biochemical & Biophysical Studies of the COVID-19 Nucleocapsid Protein with RNA." Forsythe uses nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) imaging to learn about one of the essential proteins encoded in the viral genome. That protein "plays critical roles in multiple processes of the infection cycle, including protecting and packaging viral RNA as a virus is assembled," she explained in her description. "Likely drug treatments could target and disrupt the N-protein’s interactions with RNA, thereby disrupting the building of a virus and replication."

Listing image by YouTube/Simu Group Helsinki

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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.

A man in a Bunnings straw hat leans on a white ute.

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.

Two ballet dancers posed on a hill.

"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.

A group of elaborately dressed performers crowd around a laptop outside.

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.

A woman in cultural dress poses on a hilltop.

"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."

A man in a Bunnings straw hat and a drag queen lean on a white ute.

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.

An elaborately dressed dancer stands posed on a hill.

"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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'Kangaroo Time' wins the annual Dance Your PhD contest in Australia

A former academic at Australia National University won the contest for his musical number about the behaviors of kangaroos. Scientists around the world relay their research through interpretive dance.

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Ilim Group Presents its New KLB Mill to Industry Players

Presentation of the largest kraftliner production site in Russia took place at the 27th International Exhibition of the Packaging Industry RosUpack

Ilim Group Presents its New KLB Mill to Industry Players

The presentation of the Big Ust-Ilimsk Project, involving the construction of Russia’s one-of-a-kind pulp and board (KLB) mill in the Irkutsk Oblast, was one of the key events at RosUpack 2023. When speaking at the plenary session on corrugated board packaging market development, Alexey Chenyaev, Ilim’s Senior Vice President, Sales, Supply Chain Management and Packaging, focused on the advanced manufacturing and environmental solutions implemented at the new KLB Mill and prospects for sales market expansion it will secure.

After KLB Mill ramp-up (600,000 tons of kraftliner per year), the total annual output of Ilim Group will amount to 4.3 million tons. The Company will be one of the world’s largest producers of unbleached packaging materials and will strengthen its leadership in the Chinese market of wood-free corrugated materials with a share of approximately 50 to 60%.

The Big Ust-Ilimsk project was met by exhibitors with great interest. This year the event was attended by more than 740 companies from 19 countries. Ilim’s booth with an area of 140 m2 was one of the largest one at the site and was operated by about 50 experts from Sales and Corrugated Box Business Management Departments. The booth was attended by over 60 key accounts and more than 120 representatives of various companies, including such major ones as Heinz, MARS and KDV-Group.

Reference information:

Ilim Group is the leader of the Russian pulp and paper industry and one of the industry leaders globally. Ilim Group has three pulp and paper mills in the Arkhangelsk (Koryazhma) and Irkutsk (Bratsk and Ust-Ilimsk) Oblasts, two modern corrugated box plants in the Leningrad and Moscow Oblasts (Kommunar and Dmitrov, respectively), and Sibgiprobum engineering and design institute (Irkutsk).

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Thinking of Pursuing a PhD in Economics? Info on Graduate School and Beyond

Kasey Chatterji-Len and Anna Kovner

Photo of three young students writing a formula on a green blackboard with white chalk.

Becoming a PhD economist can provide a fulfilling and financially secure career path. However, getting started in the field can be daunting if you don’t know much about the preparation you’ll need and the available job opportunities. If you’re wondering what it means to be an economics researcher or how to become one, please read on. We’ll review how to prepare for a career in economics research, what an economics PhD program entails, and what types of opportunities it might bring. Economic education is a core component of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s mission to serve the community. To empower would-be economists, this post provides information for students who seek a career in economics research. We hope this information will be helpful to students interested in economics, regardless of their background and economic situation.  This information is most applicable to students applying to programs in the United States.  

The Breadth of Economics Research  

Academic disciplines conduct research in different ways, so it’s important to have a basic understanding of the types of questions economists ask and how they approach answering them. There are many definitions of economics, but a broadly useful one is the study of how people, organizations, and governments make decisions under different constraints, and how those decisions may affect their outcomes. 

When answering these questions, economists seek to ground their analyses in models and to be quantitatively precise about the effects they assign to any given cause. The range of topics economists can study is wide, but the accepted approaches to answering questions are stricter. Some examples of what economists might ask: 

  • How do different public housing programs affect the children who live there? 
  • Does a certain type of law encourage businesses to innovate? 
  • How will a change in the interest rate affect inflation and unemployment rates? 
  • How much does affordable health insurance improve people’s health? 
  • How can poor countries eradicate poverty? 

There are many different subfields within economics, including, but not limited to behavioral, econometrics, energy/environmental, development, financial, international, monetary, public, and urban economics. You can familiarize yourself with the latest work in economics by subscribing to working paper series, such as NBER’s New This Week or the New York Fed’s Staff Reports . To get an idea of the breadth of questions economists can answer, you could listen to Stephen Dubner’s “ Freakonomics Radio ” podcast. You may also want to explore the Journal of Economic Perspectives , the New York Fed’s Liberty Street Economics blog, VoxDev , or VoxEU .  

What Is a PhD Program Like?    

Economics PhD programs typically last five to seven years. Unlike masters programs, they are often fully funded with a stipend, though most require students to complete teaching assistant and/or research assistant (RA) work as part of their funding package. In the first two years, students take classes, many of which are mathematically demanding. The rest of the program can include additional classes but is primarily devoted to original research with the aim of producing publishable papers that will constitute the dissertation.  

Faculty advisors are a central part of PhD programs, as students look to them for guidance during the research process. Economics PhD programs are offered within university economics departments, but there are similar programs in public policy and business schools. You can look at their websites to understand any differences in coursework and subsequent job placements. 

What Can You Do with an Economics PhD?  

Upon graduation, students can obtain jobs in a variety of industries. Many PhD students hope to become university professors. Governments and public policy-related institutions such as the Federal Reserve System, the U.S. federal government, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) also hire economists to work on policy, lead programs, and conduct research. Finally, economics PhD graduates can also find employment at a variety of private sector companies, including banks, economic consulting firms, and big tech companies. The pay for these different positions can vary. According to the American Economics Association (AEA), the average starting salary for economics assistant professors in 2022-23 was approximately $140,000 at PhD granting institutions and $98,000 at BA granting institutions. 

Programs often publish the placements of their PhD graduates, so you can look online to see specific employment outcomes. See, for example, the University of Maryland’s placements . Ultimately, economists are highly regarded as authorities on a variety of topics. Governments, nonprofits, philanthropic foundations, financial institutions, and non-financial businesses all look to economists to answer important questions about how to best achieve their goals. Thus, earning an economics Ph.D. can potentially help you to influence issues that are important to you. 

Preparing for an Economics PhD Program  

There are several components to an economics PhD program application: college transcripts, GRE scores, letters of recommendation, and personal statements. Please download the Appendix linked below to learn more about transcripts and letters of recommendation. The Appendix details ways in which you can select coursework, obtain research experience, and develop relationships to position yourself for success as a PhD applicant.  

If you feel that you are too far along in your academic career to take enough of the classes described in the Appendix, this does not necessarily preclude you from pursuing an economics PhD. For example, it’s possible to take some of these classes through a master’s program, or through a pre-doctoral RA job. Some pre-doctoral RA jobs, such as the one here at the New York Fed , may enable you to take classes in preparation for graduate school. If you are concerned about your transcript, reach out to an economist at your university for advice; program standards for coursework and grades vary, and it’s a good idea to get more personalized advice. 

Research Experience   

If you’re interested in becoming an economics researcher and applying to PhD programs, it’s best to get research experience as soon as possible. Working as an RA is a great way to learn how to conduct research and get a better idea of whether it’s the right career path for you. Additionally, it can help you obtain a letter of recommendation for graduate school applications and improve your qualifications.  

All types of academic research can be enriching, but it’s beneficial to gain experience working directly with an economist. To find a position, you can reach out to professors whose work you find interesting or find an RA program at your school. Typical RA tasks may involve data collection and cleaning, as well as running analyses and creating charts to represent results. This is where coding skills become crucial; having taken math, statistics, and econometrics courses will also enable you to take on more responsibilities. 

You may also have the opportunity to conduct your own research, possibly under the supervision of a professor at your university. This research could be self-initiated or part of a course such as a thesis workshop. Self-directed research is a great opportunity to learn about all stages of the research process. It’s also an excellent opportunity to create a writing sample for graduate school applications. Ultimately, though, your motivation for conducting your own research project should be that you want to answer a question.  One thing economists have in common is a love of answering questions using data and theory. 

Research experience is also often obtained after completing an undergraduate or master’s degree. Taking on a full-time RA position before applying to PhD programs is very common and can make you a more competitive applicant. You may either get an RA job working for a professor or participate in a pre-doctoral RA program.  

Research assistant programs are more structured than positions with individual professors or projects, which could be helpful. Universities, parts of the government, think tanks, research organizations, and the Federal Reserve System are all good places to look for research assistant programs. To help you decide which opportunities are most desirable, you may want to ask potential employers : Where do people in this program tend to go afterward? Will I be working directly with an economist? How much of my time will be spent on academic research work? Will I be able to take classes as part of this program? Considering whether an economist will be able to evaluate your performance is an important factor for recommendation letters. The ability to take classes, either through tuition reimbursement or waivers, can also be an important benefit. 

The Research Analyst program here at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is one example of these programs and you should check it out here . The Federal Reserve Board of Governors also has a large program, and many other regional Federal Reserve Banks have similar programs. In addition, the PREDOC website and the  NBER post listings of RA opportunities. J-PAL and IPA also tend to recruit RAs for economic development projects. Another source of RA opportunities is the @econ_ra account on X. 

Who Should Get a PhD in Economics?  

A PhD may not be for everyone, but it is for anyone—people of all genders, religions, ethnicities, races, and national origins have PhDs in economics. Many economists majored in economics, but others majored in math, physics, or chemistry. Because economics is such an integral part of policymaking, it is important that economists come from a wide range of backgrounds so policy can be stronger and more effective. The inclusion of differing perspectives helps ensure that the contribution of economists to work in public policy, academia, and beyond effectively serves the broadest range of society. 

  • Coursework Appendix

dance your phd

Kasey Chatterji-Len is a research analyst in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Research and Statistics Group.

dance your phd

Anna Kovner  is the director of Financial Stability Policy Research in the Bank’s Research and Statistics Group.

How to cite this post: Kasey Chatterji-Len and Anna Kovner, “Thinking of Pursuing a PhD in Economics? Info on Graduate School and Beyond,” Federal Reserve Bank of New York Liberty Street Economics , May 31, 2024, https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2024/05/thinking-of-pursuing-a-phd-in-economics-info-on-graduate-school-and-beyond/.

You may also be interested in: AEA: Resources for Students

PREDOC: Guidance for Undergraduates

RA Positions-Not at the NBER

Disclaimer The views expressed in this post are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the author(s).

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dance your phd

COMMENTS

  1. Announcing the annual Dance Your Ph.D. contest

    Turn your Ph.D. thesis into a dance. Post the video on YouTube. Send us the link by 26 January 2024. The rules. For the normal categories, you must have a Ph.D., or be working on one as a Ph.D. student. For the special AI/Quantum category, the dance does not need to be based on a PhD thesis. Your Ph.D. must be in a science-related field (see FAQ).

  2. Meet the winners of the 2024 Dance Your PhD Contest

    Jennifer Ouellette - 2/29/2024, 9:31 AM. Weliton Menário Costa of the Australian National University won the 2024 Dance Your PhD contest with "Kangaroo Time." We've been following the annual ...

  3. Watch the winners of this year's 'Dance Your Ph.D.' contest

    The Lithuanian scientist's colorful and clever interpretation of the electric stimulation of yeast—replete with people representing prancing cells and mouthwatering baked goods—is the winner of this year's "Dance Your Ph. D." contest. Šimonis's Ph.D. investigated how yeast, the single-celled fungus that powers bread baking and a ...

  4. Watch The Winners Of The 'Dance Your Ph.D' Contest : NPR

    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 ...

  5. Watch the winner of this year's 'Dance Your Ph.D.' contest

    The judges—a panel of world-renowned artists and scientists—chose Groneberg's dance from 30 submissions based on both artistic and scientific merits. She takes home $1000 and a distinction shared by 11 past overall winners. "This year's Dance Your Ph.D. featured some of the best combinations of science and interpretive dance I have seen!

  6. 'Dance Your Ph.D.' winner on science, art, and embracing his identity

    Menário Costa won this year's " Dance Your Ph.D ." contest, an annual competition organized by Science magazine where doctoral students and Ph.D. graduates showcase their research through dance ...

  7. Dance Your Ph.D.

    Origins. Dance Your Ph.D. is an international science competition founded by John Bohannon, who studies microbiology and artificial intelligence, is a former contributing correspondent for Science, and the current Director of Science for Primer.ai.Bohannon explained that the idea for Dance Your Ph.D. began at a New Year's Eve party that was "heavy on scientist attendees and light on the ...

  8. Molecular Clusters [Dance Your PhD 2020/2021 OVERALL WINNER]

    Authors: Jakub Kubečka, Ivo Neefjes, Vitus Besel et al.About: Jakub Kubečka, Ivo Neefjes, and Vitus Besel (Twitter: @Supervitux) are PhD students of Atmosphe...

  9. Watch This Year's 'Dance Your PhD' Contest Winner, a Musical

    The origins of the "Dance Your PhD" competition can be traced to New Year's Eve in 2006, when John Bohannon—a microbiologist and director of science at artificial intelligence company ...

  10. 'Joyful madness': ANU scientist wins global prize for 'dancing his PhD

    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 ...

  11. Meet this year's winners of the Dance Your PhD contest

    Jennifer Ouellette - 3/3/2021, 7:00 AM. Finnish researcher Jakub Kubecka won this year's Dance Your PhD contest with a rap-based dance inspired by his work on the physics of atmospheric molecular ...

  12. Kangaroo Time (Club Edit) (From Dance Your PhD 2024

    Subscribe. Stream my EP "Yours Academically, Dr. WELI". Karaoke version: https://youtu.be/nbGYDhirD7sCheck our BTS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2U76WCw3d...

  13. 'Kangaroo Time' hops into top spot of Science's latest 'Dance Your Ph.D

    Runners-up in Science 's annual competition include dances of streambank erosion and moth mating. 26 Feb 2024. 4:00 PM ET. By Sean Cummings. In his winning "Dance Your Ph.D." video, Weliton Menário Costa shifts his dance style to match other dancers, mimicking how kangaroos adapt their personalities to fit the group. Weliton Menário Costa.

  14. A dance contest let this grad student share his research and ...

    Science magazine's annual contest "Dance Your PhD" invites grad students to present their research through dance. This year's winner, Weliton Menário Costa, showcased his work on kangaroo behavior.

  15. ANU academic and songwriter wins global Dance Your PhD competition for

    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 ...

  16. Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station

    The Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station (also referred to as The 50 years of Great October Dam) is a concrete gravity dam on the Angara River and adjacent hydroelectric power station.It is the second level of the Angara River hydroelectric station cascade in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia.From its commissioning in 1966, the station was the world's single biggest power producer until Krasnoyarsk ...

  17. Bratsky District

    25604000. Bratsky District ( Russian: Бра́тский райо́н) is an administrative district, one of the thirty-three in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. [1] Municipally, it is incorporated as Bratsky Municipal District. [6] It is located in the northwest of the oblast. The area of the district is 33,660 square kilometers (13,000 sq mi). [3]

  18. Watch the winners of this year's 'Dance Your Ph.D.' contest

    The Dance Your Ph.D. contest has been challenging scientists to explain their research through dance for 14 years now. The competition is run by John Bohannon, a former correspondent for Science and now the director of science at Primer, an artificial intelligence company that currently sponsors the tournament.

  19. 'Kangaroo Time' wins the annual Dance Your PhD contest in Australia

    MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: "Kangaroo Time" was this year's overall winner of the annual Dance Your PhD contest. Scientists from around the world relay their research through interpretive dance ...

  20. Ilim Group Presents its New KLB Mill to Industry Players

    Presentation of the largest kraftliner production site in Russia took place at the 27th International Exhibition of the Packaging Industry RosUpack. The presentation of the Big Ust-Ilimsk Project, involving the construction of Russia's one-of-a-kind pulp and board (KLB) mill in the Irkutsk Oblast, was one of the key events at RosUpack 2023.

  21. Thinking of Pursuing a PhD in Economics? Info on Graduate School and

    Becoming a PhD economist can provide a fulfilling and financially secure career path. However, getting started in the field can be daunting if you don't know much about the preparation you'll need and the available job opportunities. If you're wondering what it means to be an economics researcher or how to become one, please read on. We'll review how to prepare for a career in ...

  22. Dance Your Ph.D. FAQ

    Basically, to win this contest, you have to impress the judges. Some of them are scientists, some of them are artists. Your dance has to convey something essential about your Ph.D. research. Whatever that is, the judges need to "get it". But you also have to make something that is fun to watch. Sure, it can be funny.

  23. Official rules for Dance Your Ph.D. contest

    The AAAS/ Science Magazine Dance Your Ph.D. Thesis Contest (the "Contest") begins on 7 November 2023 at 12:01:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time ("EDT") and the period for entering the Contest ends on 26 January 2024 at 11:59 EST (the "Entry Period"). By participating in the Contest, each entrant unconditionally accepts and agrees to ...

  24. Bratsk

    The city's rapid development commenced with the announcement in 1952 that a dam and hydroelectric plant would be built at Bratsk on the Angara River. Town status was granted to Bratsk in 1955. [4] The city of Bratsk was formed from separate villages, industrial and residential areas according to a 1958-61 masterplan.