New Venue for Engage: The Science Speaker Series

Engage: The Science Speaker Series, presents “UW Science Now,” hosted by the Seattle Science Lectures this year. Our talks will either be downstairs at Town Hall or at the Town Hall Pub. See below for schedule and ticket information. More information on the speakers and the content of their talks is coming soon and will be posted on our website (www.engage-science.com).

Two years ago, we developed curriculum out of a belief that science has an important voice in our society, and that scientists need to know how to speak their voice in a helpful way. Modeled after discussions found in books by Chris Mooney, Randy Olsen, Cornelia Dean, and others, our course incorporated elements of story-telling, improvisational arts, development of analogy, and a focus on clarity, brevity, and accessibility. We tested elements of our talks with our peers from many scientific fields to craft our research into engaging presentations.

Teaching each other how to best communicate our research wasn’t enough — we wanted to directly engage with the public. We created a lecture series with the aim of showing people in the Seattle area what kinds of research are going on at UW, and to allow them the opportunity to learn some cutting edge, brand-new science. For two years, we have invited folks to the UW campus to hear directly from the scientists doing the work.

After our last season, we decided that to better reach the public, we should move our lecture series off campus. We’re excited that Town Hall and the Seattle Science Lectures agreed to host our talks, and that they’ve paired some of us up with nationally recognized scientists with common research interests. Our up coming series will help us spread our message to more of the public which will in turn make us better citizen scientists.

UW Science Now: From Mountains to Microbes

Presented by Engage: The Science Speaker Series as part of Seattle Science Lectures, with the University of Washington, Pacific Science Center and University Book Store. Series sponsored by Microsoft. Series media sponsorship provided by KPLU.

Weds January 25th

DOWNSTAIRS, 6:00 pm – 6:45 pm

[precedes Charles Moore]

Jessica Rohde

Should I Stay or Should I Go? Diverse Migration Patterns of Puget Sound Coho Salmon

 

Weds February 8th

PUB, 9:00 pm – 10:00 pm

[follows Wael Ghonim/D. Parvaz]

Shawn Walker

Not Your Parents’ Protest: New Forms of Political Participation in Social Media

 

Tues February 21

DOWNSTAIRS, 8:00 pm

[follows Dr. Gary Small]

Susan Fung

When Good Cells Go Bad: Your Brain Helping Brain Tumors Survive

 

Thurs, February 23

DOWNSTAIRS, 7:30 pm

Camila Haristoy

Soils in the Air: The Savings Account of the Forest

Laura E. Martinez

The Life and Times of a Cancer-Causing Bacterium That can Thrive in the Human Stomach

 

Thurs, March 1

DOWNSTAIRS, 7:30 pm

Andrea Watts

English Holly – Welcomed Guest or Escape Artist?

Katrina Claw

Mission Impossible: A Sperm’s Perilous Journey to the Center of the Egg

 

Weds, March 7

DOWNSTAIRS, 8:00 pm

[follows Brian Christian]

Katie Kuksenok

Helping Computers Find Meaning They Lost in Translation

 

Weds, March 21

DOWNSTAIRS, 7:30 pm

Karl Lang

How to Build a Mountain Range

Kelly Huang

Your Favorite Riverside Landscape – Why it Matters to Scientists

 

Thurs, April 12

DOWNSTAIRS, 7:30 pm

Paul Fischer

The Conscientious Forester: Forests and Carbon Credits in Western Washington

 

Thurs, April 19

PUB, 9:00 pm – 10:00 pm

[follows E.O. Wilson]

Jennifer Griffiths

Fish Out of Water? Salmon and Rapid Environmental Change

 

Ticket Information

UW Science Now at Town Hall tickets are $5 each

Contact:

info@engage-science.com

This week will mark the final talk in our 2011 Engage Speaker Series. We would like to thank everyone who made it out to our talks and supported our speakers and Engage. For many of our speakers, this experience was their very first public talk, and having an interested audience present was huge. Thanks again, and we look forward to seeing you next year, when we hope to become part of Science Cafe (more about this soon!)!

This week, Wes Smith will take us into the world of nanotechnology via Quantum Dots. These semiconductor nanoparticles have a lot of potential, particularly as a diagnostic tool in the medical field. Currently, these nanoparticles are made of heavy metals, many of which are toxic in the body. Wes will tell us about ongoing research into the uses and safety of Quantum dots.

We look forward to seeing you there!

This week, we have a microscopic double-header.

Julie Shi will be talking to us about gene therapy and how scientists are turning viruses from disease causing agents to vehicles for cures. Julie studies the engineering of synthetic viruses.

Andrew will be talking about how scientists study the shapes of proteins using fluorescence. The shape of a protein can affect its function, and fluorescence helps scientists understand how proteins change their shape.

Please join us for this week’s awesome line-up!

Tonight Melissa gave us a great presentation about the history, use, and some very interesting examples of misuses of graphs. Personally, I was really interested in the example drawn from the BP oil spill. Melissa promised to share some books that were excellent guides to making graphs. They are: “Creating More Effective Graphs” by Naomi B. Robbins (2005) John Wiley & Sons and “Show Me the Numbers: Designing Tables and Graphs to Enlighten” by Stephen Few (2004) Analytics Press. They will help anyone make effective graphs.

Thanks to all who attended, and we hope to see you at future talks, such as the double-header coming up in two weeks. We’ll have a talk about space weather and prosthetic feet. See you then!

This past Wednesday, March 16th, Will Marrs and Jonathan Cheng delivered two excellent talks.  Will discussed the history and current health research findings of marijuana (cannabis) science, and Jonathan talked about a new nanotechnology, the lab-on-a-chip, fabricated and used right here at the University of Washington.  If you want to learn more about the type of research Jonathan is doing, visit the College of Engineering Open House April 22nd and 22rd (more info here: UW College of Engineering Open House).

A big thanks to Will, Jonathan, and everyone that came out to watch these two great speakers!  Please join us next week for a talk by Melissa Clarkson on the “Invention, Use and Misuse of Graphs”.  Melissa will delve into the history and science of graphs and their interpretation, and investigate some of the graphs that the online community has deemed “misleading”.

Hope to see you there!