AUDIENCE / 02, Academic & Professional
PhD in ecology & evolution. Dance Your PhD 2024 winner. Research, teaching, and culture-facing translation.
Research
Research spanning science and popular culture, with ecology, evolution, animal behaviour, personality, and analytical work remaining central through publications, fieldwork, environment monitoring, survey analysis, and long-term studies.
Teaching
Teaching and facilitation across ecology, science communication, creativity, humour, public engagement, and culturally resonant ways of translating complex knowledge.
Speaking
Conference speaking, media-facing communication, and research-grounded work spanning popular culture, film, music, sound, performance, and research-creation.
Research interests
The research side remains first. The creative work operates as a public-facing translation layer through WildWooHoo, drawing parallels between animal and human societies.
How music, film, audio-visual media, and popular culture shape public engagement with science and nature.
Animal behaviour, evolutionary biology, social evolution, personality, social systems, long-term studies, and biological knowledge across species.
Music, audio-visual work, and educational material shaped by research and social impact goals.
Review parallels between human and other animal societies used to build communication, education, and wider public connection.
These interests remain rooted in research while converging in WildWooHoo as a creative and public-facing translation space. Animal behaviour, ecology, evolution, sound, media, and wider social connection move together - parallels between the animal kingdom and our own.
Profile
Behavioural ecologist designing cultural experiences, workshops, and programs through music, movement, and storytelling. Brazilian born, Sydney based, globally recognised for building bridges between science, performance, and public culture — Dance Your PhD winner (Kangaroo Time) and founder of WildWooHoo.
Current research
The current research line, Science in Music and Pop Culture, runs with Dr Anna-Sophie Jürgens through an ANU CPAS Visiting Fellowship. Two writing projects are underway: one treats music as science communication, with Kangaroo Time as the case study; the other examines camp science and what alien cinema contributes to science communication.
Alongside ecological and behavioural research, this work expands into popular culture, humour, performance, and research-creation as forms of inquiry and engagement.
2025 – Current
Centre for the Public Awareness of Science (Popsicule), ANU College of Systems & Society, Group: Dr Anna-Sophie Jürgens. Lectures, panels, workshops, and research development across science, humour, film, music, and popular culture.
2025 – 2026
UNSW, Educational Data & Insights, Level 6, Step 2, fixed-term part-time. Worked with Anaëlle Medioni on QILT, student experience survey analysis, response rates, reporting, and stakeholder-facing evidence building.
2022 – 2024
ANU Research School of Biology, Officer Grade 5/6, full-time fixed term. Worked with Prof. Justin Borevitz across ARC-funded projects, soil carbon research, remote sensing, modelling, data systems, and advanced statistical workflows.
2017 – 2021
The Australian National University, Supervisors: Prof. Loeske Kruuk & Prof. Marco Festa-Bianchet. Long-term field-based Ecology & Evolution research on personality, social environment, and maternal effects in wild kangaroos.
2012 – 2017
Federal Institute of Espírito Santo (IFES), Brazil, Permanent, full-time. Supported science and education delivery, research activities, and academic administration.
Education
PhD in Ecology & Evolution from The Australian National University, focused on personality, social environment, and maternal-level effects in a wild kangaroo population.
PhD (Ecology & Evolution)
The Australian National University · 2017–2021
Licentiate & BSc (Honours), Biological Sciences
Federal Institute of Espírito Santo · 2010–2016
Journal article
Menário Costa, W., King, W.J., Bonnet, T., Festa-Bianchet, M., & Kruuk, L.E.B. (2023). Behavioral Ecology, 34(6), 1002–1012.
PhD thesis
Menário Costa, W. (2021). Personality, social environment, and maternal-level effects: insights from a wild kangaroo population. PhD Thesis, Australian National University.
Writing in progress
Part of the Science in Music and Pop Culture line with Dr Anna-Sophie Jürgens (ANU CPAS), taking Kangaroo Time as the case study.
Writing in progress
What camp science and alien cinema contribute to science communication, within the Science in Music and Pop Culture line at ANU CPAS.
Flagship project
A public-facing research translation project connecting doctoral research on kangaroo behaviour with music, dance, performance, and cultural storytelling.
Placed here as a flagship output, it makes the academic and creative relationship explicit: the work emerges from behavioural ecology while also speaking directly to media, arts, music, and wider public engagement contexts.
2024
Brazil. Commissioned opening plenary, with the song Cabra da Peste written and performed for the occasion.
2024
Science Magazine / AAAS
2025
Top 30 worldwide, for Science and the People
2024
Project support for science communication
2017 – 2020
Research funding support
Lectures, panels, research-creation, and public-facing science. Send your context and I'll come back with a scoped proposal.