New Bedford Science Cafe
New Bedford Science Café is usually held on the first or second Tuesday of each month from 6-8 pm at
The Vault Music Hall & Pub, 791 Purchase Street in New Bedford, Massachusetts
The Vault Music Hall & Pub, 791 Purchase Street in New Bedford, Massachusetts
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Join us in person at The Vault Music Hall & Pub on September 14th!!
For those not comfortable attending, stay tuned for a recording of the Café to be uploaded after September 14th
For those not comfortable attending, stay tuned for a recording of the Café to be uploaded after September 14th
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Upcoming Cafés
September 14, 2021 (IN PERSON!): John Miller, Executive Director of New England Marine Renewable Energy Collaborative, will discuss "Harnessing Tidal Energy; The Cape Cod Railroad Bridge Test Site." Previous Cafés June 1, 2021 (VIRTUAL): Keith Lovett, Director of the Buttonwood Park Zoo and wildlife conservationist, will discuss "The Role of the Modern Zoo: Utilizing genetic science for the conservation of species." Missed it? Watch the recording! April 6, 2021 (VIRTUAL): Brad Chase, a senior marine fisheries biologist with the Mass Division of Marine Fisheries, will discuss "The Herring are Running: Migratory fish restoration in Massachusetts." Missed it? Watch the recording! March 2, 2021 (VIRTUAL): Alan Poole, Cornell ornithologist, will discuss "The Resplendent Quetzak; Birds as barometers of land use in Central America." Missed it? Watch the recording! February 2, 2021 (VIRTUAL): Jennifer Francis, Senior Scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, will discuss "Arctic Meltdown: Why it matters to all of us." Missed it? Watch the recording! January 5, 2021 (VIRTUAL): Scott Cassel (CEO/Founder) and Sydney Harris (Director of Policy) of Boston-based Product Stewardship Institute will discuss "Producer Responsibility: The circular solution to waste pollution." Missed it? Watch the recording! December 1, 2020 (VIRTUAL): Kim Sawicki, PhD student at UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science and Technology, will discuss "Ropeless Fishing Gear: Fishing effectively without harming marine mammals." Missed it? Watch the recording! November 10, 2020 (VIRTUAL): Jonathan Kurtis, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Brown University and director of the Lifespan Center for International Health Research, will discuss "A Promising New Strategy for Combating Malaria." Missed it? Watch the recording! October 6, 2020 (VIRTUAL): Jamie Jacquart, Associate Director of Sustainability at UMass Dartmouth, will discuss "Carbon Neutrality: How to Achieve a Net Zero Carbon Footprint by 2030." Missed it? Watch the recording! September 8, 2020 (VIRTUAL): Robert Johnson, Ph.D., senior scientist at Kirtland Air Force Research Laboratory, will discuss "Laser Beacon Adaptive Optics: How an invention for looking into space is revolutionizing astronomy and our understanding of the universe." Missed it? Watch the recording! August 4, 2020 (VIRTUAL): Ellen Langer, Ph.D., Harvard psychology professor, will be discussing "Coping with Isolation: A Mindful Solution." Missed it? Watch the recording! July 14, 2020 (VIRTUAL): Erin Bromage, Ph.D., associate professor at UMass Dartmouth, will join us for a second time, discussing "COVID-19. Where are we now? What can we expect going forward?" Missed it? Watch the recording! June 9, 2020 (VIRTUAL): Adam J. Hawkins, sustainable energy expert, will be discussing "Beneath Our Feet: Geothermal energy and its transformative potential for heating homes, campuses and entire cities." Missed it? Watch the recording! March 10, 2020: Jade Luiz, Ph.D., Curator of Collections at Plimouth Plantation, will be discussing "A Tale of One Village and Two Peoples: Archaeological revelations about the Wampanoag village of Patuxet and its later settlement as Plymouth Colony." February 4, 2020: Erin Bromage, Ph.D., associate professor at UMass Dartmouth, will be discussing "Designing Vaccines: The challenge of keeping farm-raised fish healthy (Yes, fish need vaccinations, too!)." January 7, 2020: Jennifer Fugate, Ph.D., assistant professor at UMass Dartmouth, will be discussion " Why the science behind facial and emotion recognition technology is flawed." December 3, 2019: Mitchelle Agonsi, Amanda Hart, And Ashleigh Novak, graduate students and researchers and UMass Dartmouth's School for Marine Science & Technology (SMAST), will be discussing "Changing oceans, moving fish: How can the sciecne that informs fisheries management keep up?" November 5, 2019: Mark Litos, co-founder of the New Bedford company Refried Apparel, will be discussing "At the forefront of upcycling textiles and sustainable fashion." October 1, 2019: Nikolay Anguelov, associate professor in the Department of Public Policy at UMass Dartmouth, will be discussing "How fashion impacts the environment; Promoting circularity." September 10, 2019: K.C. Cushman, PhD candidate in forest ecology at Brown University, will be discussing "How Much CO2 Does a Forest Absorb? Solving the Mystery with Lasers & Drones." July 16, 2019: John Rogers, senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists will be discussing "Capturing offshore wind along the east and west coasts: Power, policy and promise." June 5, 2019: Hadley Witt, PhD candidate in Pathobiology at Brown University and a Research Scientist in the Department of Surgery at Rhode Island Hospital will be discussing "Immune-Oncology: Is our immune system the cure for our cancer?" May 7, 2019: Jennifer Thum, Ph.D., Curatorial Fellow and Museum Educator, who will be discussing "Words in the Landscape; Rock Inscriptions and the Egyptians' Relationship to the Natural World." April 2, 2019: Peter Haas, robotics engineer and Associate Director of the Humanity Centered Robotics Initiative at Brown University, who will be discussing "Are Robots Stealing Our Jobs? What to be scared of, and what not." March 6, 2019: Megan Winton, marine scientist and PhD candidate at the School for Marine Science and Technology, who will be discussing "You're gonna need a bigger dataset: How statistics are shedding light on he secret lives of sharks." February 5, 2019: Seth Garfield, aquaculturist at Cuttyhunk Shellfish Farms, who will be discussing "Down on a watery farm: lessons learned by a local shell-fisher and the hurdles that lie ahead." January 8, 2019: Laurel Schaider, research scientist at the Silent Spring Institute, who will be discussing “PFAS contaminants in the nation's drinking water supplies. Where these chemicals come from, how they affect our health, and what we can do to reduce our exposure.” December 4, 2018: Heather Goldstone, NPR science editor and host of Living Lab Radio, who will be discussing “Climate Change in the News; The good, the bad and the ugly.” November 6, 2018: The Mindful Brain - Professor Aminda O'Hare will be discussing "How mindfulness shapes the brain: A case for practicing compassion." O'Hare is an Associate Professor of Psychology studying cognitive neuroscience at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. October2, 2018: Youth Football and Cognitive Impairment - Laney Evers and Bobby Abdolmohammadi will be discussing "Youth football and the risks of repetitive brain trauma in young athletes. Evers and Abdolmohammadi are research scientists at Boston University School of Medicine's Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) center. September 4, 2018: Food Sustainability through Aquaculture - Professor Michael Tlusty will be discussing "Aquaculture as one solution to feeding the next 2 billion; Stepping stones to food sustainability." July 10, 2018: Bees vs. Pesticides - Entomologist Wayne Andrews will be discussing "Bees vs. Pesticides; Time to un-poison our landscape. (And no, bee colony collapse disorder isn't due to only a virus.)" June 12, 2018: Sustainable Farming - Eva Sommaripa will be discussing "Good Food, Good Earth; Harnessing Microbes & Nutrients." Eva is New England's celebrated cultivator of Eva's Garden and a leader in sustainable farming practices. May 1, 2018: Massachusetts Earthquakes - John Ebel will be discussing "Massachusetts Earthquakes: Where, Why, and When?" Dr. Ebel is a professor of Geophysics in the department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Boston College and a senior research scientist at the Weston Observatory of Boston College. April 3, 2018: Landing the Mars Rover - Mike Bramble will be discussing "The Contest of Mapping a Suitable Landing Site for the Mars 2020 Rover." Bramble is a planetary geologist and Ph.D. candidate at Brown University. March 6, 2018: Sustainable Building - Kathryn Duff will be discussing "Sustainable House, Sustainable Community: Efficient, Healthy, and Biophilic." Duff is the founder and director of studio2sustain in New Bedford an a leader in environmentally minded design. February 6, 2018: Ocean Wind Turbines - Dr. Anthony Ucci and Paul Vigeant will be discussing "The Intricacies of Building and Installing Ocean Wind Turbines." Ucci is a professor of Engineering at Bristol Community College and Vigeant is the Director of the New Bedford Wind Energy Center. January 9, 2018: Synthetic Biology - Dr. James Griffith, former Chair of Medical Laboratory Science at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Dr. Griffith will be discussing "Synthetic biology: miracle or monster? Redesigning microorganisms into life forms that make rubber, saffron, vanillin (used in vanilla extract), rice, fuels, and much much more. December 12, 2017: Fisheries Management - Cassie Canasta, Debra Duarte, and Robert Wildermuth are graduate students at the School of Marine Science and Technology (SMAST), University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. They will be discussing successful fisheries management, and how to think beyond the fish. November 14, 2017: Invasive Species - Dr. Jennifer Koop is an assistant professor of Biology at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She will be discussing invasive species in the Galapagos including how they arrived and research to stop them. October 11, 2017: Dr. Tayhas Palmore is a professor of engineering and a professor of chemistry at Brown University. She will be discussing ways in which she is working to capture CO2 and convert it into biofuels, green plastics, and other products. September 19, 2017: Particle Physics - Dr. Grant O'Rielly is an associate professor of physics at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. He will be discussing particle colliders, Higgs-Boson, and hints of a new mystery particle. July 11, 2017: Cybersecurity- Dr. Joel Brenner is a Senior Research Fellow at MIT’s Internet Policy Research Initiative. He served as the head of U.S. counterintelligence under the Director of National Intelligence and as the inspector general and senior counsel of the National Security Agency. He will discuss cybersecurity and how we are to protect the digital systems that control nearly every facet of our lives June 13, 2017: Soil Science - Peter Fletcher and Maggie Payne, a certified soil scientist and a researcher with USDA, respectively, discussed "Hidden in the Dirt: South Coast soils past and present." May 2, 2017: Advances in Fishing Gear - Dr. Pingguo He from SMAST, UMass-Dartmouth, discussed “Advances in fishing gear; Listening to fish & talking to fisherman for the sake of sustaining our fragile fisheries.” |
What is a Science Café? There are dozens, if not hundreds, worldwide. They are informal gatherings, often at a pub or restaurant, between a scientist and a group of interested people. These events offer the chance for the public to question experts in a scientific field. New Bedford Science Café was launched to foster a greater appreciation of science and its enrichment of our world. Café-goers range from techies to those who have little exposure to science but are curious about the evening's topic.
The gap between science and society continues to widen as scientific fields expand and accelerate. The Café is a way for people to keep pace. These events are FREE (except for the beer and food) and open to the public, in an effort to attract a wide audience interested in scientific discussion in a relaxed setting. For more about Science Cafes around the world, visit NOVA's website: www.sciencecafes.org |
