UCLA Magazine: | "The secret lives of UCLA professors: Dr. Kenneth Wells"

In a feature published in the Fall 2026 edition of UCLA Magazine, Dr. Kenneth Wells, professor in UCLA Fielding’s Department of Health Policy and Management, was one of four UCLA Fielding faculty profiled under the headline: “Our faculty members excel in their professional fields. But sometimes what they do outside the classroom is even more revealing of who they are.” 

On any given day, you’ll find UCLA professors lecturing on political science, designing healthier communities, studying wildlife, advancing public health or teaching the next generation of architects. But when the lecture ends or the lab closes, many of them head off to other pursuits — ones that are often every bit as fascinating as their professional work.

Some are hobbies, escapes that are wildly different from the professors’ day jobs in academia. Some other pursuits might be considered second careers. All are extensions of the same curiosity, creativity and problem-solving that define these professors’ research and teaching. The skills they develop outside the classroom often shape the way they approach their scholarship; conversely, the questions they ask as scholars frequently spill over into their personal lives.

Consider this a peek behind the office door. These are the passions, projects and pursuits that don’t always appear in faculty biographies but can provide a fuller portrait of the people behind them.

The idea of a psychiatrist who writes operas might sound like a quirky TV pilot — but Kenneth Wells M.P.H. ’80, whose work focuses on improving mental health in communities and whose music focuses on mental health recovery, comes from a long line of people who find peace at the intersection of science and art.

“Combining art and science through psychiatry and music brings heart and soul together and also allows me to follow the legacy of my grandfather, father and mother,” Wells says.

His grandfather was an engineer and vice president at Bell Telephone — and also a choir director. His father was an engineer and a stained-glass artist. At age 12, Wells developed an interest in writing operas and pursued it as a hobby as he went through school, eventually becoming a psychiatrist. He learned to switch gears by following a trick of his mother’s: Spend 20 minutes a day on something new: no more, no less. If you do more than 20 minutes a day when your brain is not ready, Wells says, you’ll get frustrated because you’re not good enough. If you do less, you won’t wake up your brain.

That discipline served him well. As a teen, Wells formed a musical trio with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend, and he also founded a junior high and high school church choir. In 1978, when he was a psychiatry resident, he created yet another singing group — one that is still active today.

Wells’s first opera, "The First Lady," focused on Eleanor Roosevelt and how she dealt with complicated grief after the death of her husband. His second, The "Center Cannot Hold," was based on the life of lawyer and human rights advocate Elyn Saks and her recovery from schizophrenia. His latest opera, "Veteran Journeys," was inspired by his dad’s experience as a WWII veteran. Overall, Wells has written five operas based on true stories of mental health recovery, as well as many other choral pieces. All of his operas have been performed at the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and "Veteran Journeys" was screened and honored at the Awareness Film Festival in Los Angeles.

“I’m a psychiatrist and a scientist and a musician,” Wells says. “It is all meaningful and brings together different parts of the self into one meaningful life.” 

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