Join us on October 13th, as Dr. Chelsea Cook presents: Stay Cool: What bees can teach us about working together

Greetings all!! Our talk last month was a roaringly successful return from summer break, with our cozy back room at The Sugar Maple packed with curious minds. Let's keep that busy hive of curiosity going with our October talk, so be sure to mark your calendars and tell friends/relatives/neighbors/postal workers about it!! See you there!!!

AND!!! Since this talk is celebrating pollinators, we'll also make this an unofficial seed exchange!! So!! Bring in any pollinator-friendly seeds you'd like to share (sunflower, columbine, milkweed, butterfly weed, marigold, whatever!!). Paper envelopes or paper sandwich bags are best to prevent seed mold. Yay pollinators!!!

Animals, including humans, use information from their world to make decisions. As a professor at Marquette, Dr. Chelsea Cook and her research lab use honey bees to understand what information is important, and how they communicate to work together. In this talk, she will share what they have learned about how bees work together, and what this can help us understand about our own complex society. She will also touch on the importance of science, the role public funding plays in science happening in Milwaukee, and of course, the importance of all pollinators.

Dr. Cook is a behavioral ecologist and professor at Marquette University, where she splits her time between her research lab and the classroom. She teaches courses on Animal Behavior, Neurobiology, and Environmental Biology. She is passionate about making science accessible to everyone, and she has collaborated with programs at Marquette to teach Beekeeping and Environmental Biology in prisons in Wisconsin, and engages in outreach with Milwaukee Public Museum, local businesses, and schools. She earned her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from University of Colorado Boulder, and did a postdoc funded by the NIH to explore how individual differences in learning change foraging behavior in honey bees.

Event info:

Date: 10/13/25

Time 7-9pm CST

Cost: FREE!!!

Location: Back room of The Sugar Maple Bar, 441 E. Lincoln Ave, Bay View, WI

Join us on September 8th, as Ed Himelblau presents "A Cartoon Guide to Modern Biology"

Hello all and welcome back from a hopefully restful and fun summer break!! We can't wait to have you all back in the cozy back room of our favorite local watering hole to learn more about science!! So, be sure to tell everyone and can't wait to see you there!!

A fun talk using cartoons to explore the modern biology lab, meet the people who work there, and highlight recent life science discoveries made possible by genomics and data science.

"I teach biology and draw cartoons". Ed Himelblau is a biology professor and cartoonist for The New Yorker and other publications. His teaching and research focus is on plant genetics. (Think cold rice and mutant broccoli... possibly the worst items on the menu). Come check him out at our talk, online at www.himelblau.com or on socials at Instagram @himelblog.

Event info:

• Date: 9/8/25
• Time: 7-9pm CST
• Cost: FREE!!!
• Location: back room of the Sugar Maple Bar, 441 E. Lincoln Ave, Bay View, WI

Join us on May 12th, as the UWM Coffeeshop Astrophysics crew presents: Ghost Hunting in the Cosmos

Greetings all!! Be sure to mark your calendars for this one, as Ronan Humphrey, Lulu Agazie & Amanda Baylor from the UWM Coffeeshop Astrophysics group will teach us about space!! And also note this will be our last talk before we take a summer break and return again in September for some more nerdy fun!! Hope to see you there!!

Sometimes called the Ghost Particle, neutrinos are mysterious messengers from the cosmos. They rarely interact with normal matter, which makes them hard to detect, but they're everywhere. In fact, about 100 trillion neutrinos are passing through your body every second! In this talk, we'll discuss what neutrinos are, how we know they exist, and what they can tell us about the universe.

Ronan Humphrey is a PhD candidate studying Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He started at UWM in 2020 after earning his bachelor's degree in Physics and Math from DePaul University. His research interests are in computational astrophysics performing simulations of tidal disruptions of white dwarfs. Outside of physics, Ronan loves baking, sewing, and being outdoors.

Lulu Agazie is a Physics PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She completed her bachelor's degree in Physics with a minor in Mathematics at West Virginia University in 2019. As a member of the NANOGrav collaboration, her research focuses on construction of pulsar timing array datasets, neutron star mass measurements, and wideband methods of pulsar timing. Outside of research she enjoys hiking, crocheting, and playing the harp.

Amanda Baylor is from Pennsylvania and received her B.S. in Physics with a minor in Astronomy from Dickinson College. As a PhD candidate at UWM, she works for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration, making real-time detections of gravitational waves from the collisions of black holes and neutron stars. Her research focuses on facilitating the rapid follow up of these events in order to further our understanding of the densest objects in the Universe. Outside of work, Amanda enjoys reading old science fiction, caring for her houseplants, and running by Lake Michigan. 

Event info:

Date: 5/12/25

Time: 7-9pm CST

Cost: FREE!!!

Location: Back room of the Sugar Maple Bar, 441 E. Lincoln Ave, Bay View, WI

Join us on April 14th, as Daniel Wade of Badger Technology Group presents: Wisconsin-Based Entrepreneurial Technologies

Greetings all!! Be sure to mark your calendars for this talk, where Daniel Wade, from Badger Technology Group presents a "sampler platter" of information on his company's various technologies, such as their cutting edge Hybrid Energy Storage Systems that pair with a spectrum of renewable energies, Aircraft Avionics, Simulators and Decoys. It's the stuff of the future!! So!! Tell your family!! Tell your friends!! See you there!!

Daniel Wade is the founder and president of Badger Technology Group, headquartered in Port Washington. With undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin Madison in Business & Mathematics, and an MBA at Marquette, Dan spent most of his career working with advanced technologies at Astronautics Corporation of America, leading product and business development in the areas of avionics and energy. In 2016, he founded Badger Technology to develop and integrate avionics software and systems, and to develop renewable energy technologies. Badger Technology has received awards for Product Innovation of the Year and Wisconsin Governor's Export Achievement Award, as well as grants from the US Air Force and State of Wisconsin for its work in renewable energy. Dan also coaches a girls' high school hockey team as his real job.

Event info:

Date: 4/14/25

Time: 7-9pm CST

Cost: FREE!!!

Location: Back room of the Sugar Maple Bar, 441 E. Lincoln Ave, Bay View, WI

Join us on March 10th, as Dr. Amber Craig presents: Beyond the Binary: A Dive into the Psychology of Gender

Greetings all!! Gender has been quite the hot topic lately across the media, politics, and many other facets of our lives. Has it gotten you wanting to understand more all about it? Well, you're in luck!! For our March talk we welcome MCW's Dr. Amber Craig to come answer questions such as "How does gender identity develop?""What has gender looked like across cultures and history?" and "What does "gender affirming care" even mean, and what does psychology have to do with it?" We'll be covering the answers to these questions and more as she discusses how psychologists and other medical providers support the health of LGBTQ+ patients. Curious minds and kind hearts are encouraged!

Dr. Amber Craig is a clinical health psychologist and assistant professor at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Much of her clinical work, research, and teaching has revolved around health disparities and sexual wellness.

Dr. Craig pouring (and sipping) at the VIP tend of a 2024 craft beer festival in Milwaukee. Cheers!

Event info:

Date: 3/10/25

Time: 7-9pm CST

Cost: FREE!!!

Location: Back room of the Sugar Maple Bar, 441 E. Lincoln Ave, Bay View, WI

Join us on February 10th, as Dr. Jessica Lelinski presents: Forensic Pathology: this isn't C.S.I.

Greetings all!! Has this cold weather got you feeling like you've come down with a case of rigor mortis? Well, gather a group of equally frozen buddies and all come on down to the Sugar Maple on February 10th to grab a drink, warm up, and listen as Dr. Jessica Lelinski will discuss the basics of the Medical Examiner/Coroner (ME/C) system in Wisconsin, which deaths are investigated by the ME/C offices, and what autopsies can and cannot tell us - it's not as glamorous as what they show on TV but still pretty cool!!

Jessica Lelinski is a forensic pathologist who has worked as an Assistant Medical Examiner at the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office since 2015. She has spent her entire life in the city and suburbs of Milwaukee, apart from one year in Minneapolis during her final year of training. She went to medical school with plans to become a pediatrician, but along the way found that autopsies aren't as scary as they first seemed and that figuring out why people died can be fascinating.

Event info:

Date: 2/10/25

Time: 7-9pm CST

Cost: FREE!!!

Location: Back room of the Sugar Maple Bar, 441 E. Lincoln Ave, Bay View, WI