WildWooHoo x WELI
The partnership
WildWooHoo x WELI is the studio's artist-led partnership. WELI fronts it as its artist, voice and face, and he is also a behavioural ecologist (PhD, ANU) and the studio's founder. It is the studio's living-world line, where music comes first and grows from a peer-reviewed research programme on the behaviour and social lives of animals, and where that same work reaches into books and school programmes. WildWooHoo produces and partners the work.
This is a warm, working invitation to partners. Schools, festivals, funders, broadcasters, publishers and universities can back a programme, share the ongoing creative work, or commission something new with us. The page below sets out the music it has already made, the research it grows from, the books and classroom work, where it has travelled, and how to work with us.
Jump toThe musicThe researchBooks and classroomReachWork with us
The music
The music leads. Two songs grew from WELI's research and started everything else here. Kangaroo Time is the kangaroo study turned into music and film. It won the AAAS Dance Your PhD Global Winner 2024 award. Cabra da Peste grows from the earlier goat research, and it was commissioned for and performed at the Etologia 2024 plenary in Brazil, on the theme of creativity and science unifying communities. Both play on a double meaning: the kangaroos have their mates, and the song keeps its own kangaroo time.
Songs, screens and stages carry the research to a wide audience, so the science reaches people through music and performance. Kangaroo Time is the worked example. A peer-reviewed kangaroo study became a song and a film, and it reached audiences well beyond the original paper, in a form a wide public could take part in. The same method carries the research into the books and the classroom work below.
These two songs are the first two songs of sci pop, the studio's coined genre. The genre, its peers and how it works are set out on the Sci pop page. You can hear both songs on the Music and Entertainment page. WELI's full music sits at drweli.com/music.
The research
The music starts in the field. WELI is a behavioural ecologist who studies animal behaviour through an evolutionary and ecological lens, across individual personality, the social environment and maternal effects. This is a real research programme, and it is the ground the music and the classroom work grow from.
Kangaroos: personality and social life
WELI's peer-reviewed PhD at the Australian National University studied the personality and social behaviour of wild eastern grey kangaroos. It looked at individual personality, the social environment an animal lives in, and maternal effects passed from one generation to the next. The fieldwork ran at Wilsons Promontory in Victoria. The findings are published in Behavioral Ecology. You can read the 2023 paper.
Goats: an earlier line
Before the PhD, WELI's undergraduate fieldwork studied goat social behaviour, including the mating-season dominance hierarchy and the signals that organise it. This is honest undergraduate research, a grade below the peer-reviewed kangaroo paper, and it is the second science the music draws on.
Science in music and popular culture
A second academic line studies how science lives in popular culture, and how culture pictures science and scientists. WELI runs it as an ANU CPAS Visiting Fellow, with Dr Anna-Sophie Jurgens. Two writing projects are in progress. The first treats music as science communication, with Kangaroo Time as the case study. The second is on camp science, and what alien cinema contributes to science communication. Some of this work becomes audience-facing material, and some stays academic.
Forward research interests
The forward interests sit at the intersection of behavioural ecology and cultural cognition. They ask what an evolved primate brain does in a world it was not shaped for, and what popular culture does with that gap.
- Comparative cognition. Personality, rank, group decisions and learning read across species, studied as comparative biology.
- Cultural cognition. Thought templates pass culturally and are learned young, and they shape how people see longevity, evolution and the other species we share the planet with.
- Cultural musicology. How music stages our search for meaning, and how that shapes our bond with the natural world.
- The evolved brain in synthetic environments. A brain shaped over many thousands of years now runs in a screen-mediated world barely fifteen years old, with open questions for attention, mental health and child development.
The books and the classroom
The same research feeds children's media and school programmes. Kangaroo Time Kids puts kangaroo behaviour into music, dance and embodied learning, so children take part with their bodies and meet the science through play. It is the kids version of Kangaroo Time, and it is in delivery now through WELI's schools programme. Formats include assemblies, STEAM classroom sessions and festival keynotes, for primary and lower-secondary audiences, in plain language and across more than one tongue, so more of a room can join in.
The full schools programme, with booking details, lives at drweli.com/program.
Children's books grounded in the behavioural-ecology research are in development, and we name the wider scope here so partners can plan with us. Nothing in this list is shipping yet.
- Children's books. Illustrated story collections grounded in the behavioural-ecology research, with a companion shop at shop.wildwoohoo.com.
- Classroom and school materials. Educator-facing kits and lesson formats built around how children learn.
- Merch and character goods. Theme-based goods through the shop.
- Themed content. Short-form material organised around the current research themes.
- Animation and television. A children's animated series, if a writer-producer partner comes on board.
Reach
The work has travelled. Here is where it has landed so far.
- AAAS Dance Your PhD Global Winner 2024, for Kangaroo Time.
- Falling Walls Engage 2025 Top 30.
- 238+ media features across the work.
Live engagement is part of the picture too. The work has been delivered through Floriade 2025 in Canberra, ACT National Science Week in 2024 and 2025 with Inspiring Australia ACT, the Encontro Anual de Etologia 2024 in Brazil, the ANU HDR Research Festival, Athens Sci-Co, and a guest lecture at the ANU Centre for the Public Awareness of Science. For engagement enquiries about workshops, talks and school visits, see the Dr WELI programme pages.
Work with us
This is the studio's living-world, animal-behaviour home ground. WildWooHoo produces and WELI fronts and founds it. The work holds a quiet idea throughout: we are still part of the animal kingdom, so studying kangaroos and goats is also a way of studying ourselves.
We welcome partners who can carry the work into schools, homes, festivals and screens, and who value work that widens who takes part in science. There are three warm ways in: back a programme, share the ongoing creative work, or commission something new with us.
- Schools, museums and science centres. Programming and live engagement grounded in current research.
- Publishers and broadcasters. Children's media, illustrated books, animated series and school formats.
- Universities and research partners. Co-supervision, research collaboration and public engagement.
- Festivals, funders and cultural partners. Residencies, place-based collaborations and commissioned work.
This partnership is fronted and founded by Dr WELI, a Sydney-based behavioural ecologist (PhD, ANU) and recording artist. His academic and engagement work is documented at drweli.com. To work with us, start a conversation.