Join us on April 10th, as FTC team #10829, Bay Robotics presents: FIRST Robotics

All across the world, students in grades k-12 are joining FIRST, an international non-profit that utilizes cooperative competitions to teach youth hands-on STEM skills. Moving from programmable legos to highly mobile metal robots, students gain experience in not only hardware and programming, but also the outreach, writing, and design skills needed to run a team like a small tech company. 

Our presenters are known as FTC team #10829, Bay Robotics. Starting out of their coach's basement 8 years ago, they have become a staple at Whitefish Bay High School, reaching state every year and even qualifying for the Worlds competition in 2020. With members taking on interests ranging from robot construction and programming, to writing and even board game design, there's a little something for everyone in FIRST!

Mark your calendars and come on down to meet these talented kids, learn about their super cool STEM program and even see a live demonstration of some of their robots!! For more information about this group, check out their website here: Bay Robotics. Hope to see you there!! 

Talk will be Monday, April 10th at 7pm, lasting approximately 1 hour, followed by Q&A. Located in the Sugar Maple FRONT ROOM (to give space for the robot demonstrations). You can't miss us! :D

Join us on March 13th as Howard Aprill presents: Why I love bees and you should too

Discover the history of bees and beekeeping, bee adaptations, and why, if you like to eat, you gotta love bees! Our modern agricultural system could not function without bees. However, both honeybees and native pollinators are under threat. Learn why bees are important in our lives and what you can do to keep our buzzy friends flying.

Photo Caption: Honeybee (Apis mellifera) Queen being tended by worker bees. Photo by Howard Aprill, a naturalist at the Wehr Nature Center in Franklin, WI. Find out more about Wehr at Friends of Wehr

Talk will take place in the back room of the Sugar Maple bar in Bayview. 7-8pm followed by Q&A. FREE!

Join us on February 13th, as Dr. Leonardo Fernandino presents: The Brain Science of Concepts and Language Meaning

This talk will introduce the audience to the neuroscience of conceptual thinking and discuss how recent findings are beginning to reveal the brain basis of language meaning. Come check it out! It just might blow your mind!! 

Leo Fernandino is Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He is a cognitive neuroscientist studying the neural mechanisms of semantic memory, concept representation and language comprehension. His research combines computational modeling, functional neuroimaging, brain stimulation, and assessment of neurological patients. 

Join us on January 9th, as Dr. Kyle Kleinbeck presents: Emerging Technology for Addressing Unmet Global Needs in HIV Prevention and Contraception

HIV remains a severe global pandemic, but some regions such as Subsaharan Africa continue to experience particularly concentrated risk especially for women and girls. The unmet need for HIV prevention and care in this region coincides with significant unmet need for modern contraception. While numerous improvements have been made in recent decades around the accessibility of quality sexual and reproductive healthcare for women, girls, and people living with HIV, these unmet needs persist. Why? In this session, we will discuss a number of factors that contribute to these unmet needs including stigma, weak access to resources, and pharmaceutical pricing controversies. We will also dive into several unique and promising products and programs in development to continue to break down these barriers to sexual and reproductive healthcare.

Photo credit: Population Council/Hallie Easley

Dr. Kyle Kleinbeck is a pharmaceutical development scientist focused on sexual and reproductive health with over 10 years of experience in the industry, nearly all of which has been spent developing drugs and medical devices with non-profit, mission-based organizations. Kyle received his BS in Pharmacology & Toxicology and a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from UW-Madison. He began his career in contract manufacturing for Patheon Pharmaceuticals and quickly transitioned to a Formulation and Manufacturing Scientist role with the Population Council in New York in 2012. Since 2012, Kyle has specialized in formulation chemistry and manufacturing of HIV prevention and contraception products. He is authored on over 25 peer-reviewed manuscripts and 2 patents, and has been a leading scientist in the introduction of 5 different products into Phase 1 clinical trials. 

Join us on November 14th, as Becca Krueger presents: Deadly Dimorphics!!

Enjoying the outdoors in our beautiful Wisconsin is a wonderful thing... until it tries to kill you! What's even scarier is when the thing in nature trying to do you in is invisible to the naked eye... Wisconsin is a perfect environment for the deadly dimorphic fungus Blastomyces to proliferate, and our state has a history of significant outbreaks of blastomycosis. But should we really be worried? Should we stay indoors? And what the heck is a dimorphic fungus anyway? Come learn more about blastomycosis and all the cool things we know about this fungus and a few others!!

Photo credit: cdc.gov

Becca Krueger APNP is a nurse practitioner with the Infectious Disease team at Froedtert Hospital & the Medical College of Wisconsin. She received her Bachelor of Science in nursing in 2005 from UW-Madison and her Master's of Science in Nursing with an Acute Care Nurse Practitioner Degree from Marquette University in 2011. She has worked at FH/MCW in both critical care and now in Infectious Diseases since 2015. She sees a wide variety of patients with infectious diseases including solid organ and bone marry transplant patients. In addition to her clinical role, she is an associate director of advanced practice for the Medical College Physicians within MCW.

Outside of work, Becca has 3 boys ages 9, 5, and 18 months and spends as much time outdoors as possible! You can find her biking, running, skiing, hiking, and skipping stones into Lake Michigan at Big Bay Beach (just a few blocks from her house) on many evenings with the boys. 

Join us on October 10th, as Tony the Bug Whisperer himself, brings us Bugs in VR!!

Prior to Covid, Tony's Creepy Crawly Zoo traveled the country with its live insect show that lit wildfires of scientific curiosity in children. The show was an experience kids never forgot. Tony had been working to create a permanent location that was an insect/reptile themed natural science park for kids. just when all seemed to be on the verge of happening and Tony even published a science activity book to enhance the live experience, the pandemic struck, and all those years of work came to a screeching halt.

As with many businesses that revolved around large crowds, you had to either adapt or die. Most similar shows went virtual. "I did one virtual show, and it was just awful. Sitting in front of a webcam holding an insect wasn't even remotely like the live show. I had to find a new way to recreate an "experience"." Tony turned to an idea he had many years earlier, Virtual Reality. The problem was, the technology for a VR macro camera did not exist, so he invented one!

Fast forward half a dozen failed attempts and 2 year later, Macro VR is now a "reality". The result was an 8k camera that can take you inside the habitats of the creatures in the Creepy Crawly Zoo and let you see the world as if you were 2" tall. Tony will be discussing how his vision of an insect/reptile themed natural science park for kids has been reborn in the Metaverse. Attendees will have a chance to experience it and even meet some of the animals of the Creepy Crawly Zoo!

Antonio Gustin (The Bug Whisperer TM) is best known for his live show, Tony's Creepy Crawly Zoo, a traveling live insect show for kids. Tony's Creepy Crawly Zoo, was a dynamic and theatrical show, that visited nearly 2 million children in the last 3 decades and continues today. In 2005, Antonio turned his attention to video and developed the character, The Bug Whisperer. He produced a pilot episode titled, Tales from the Bug Whisperer. He wrote it, filmed it, edited it and produced it on a budget of less than $5000. It received rave reviews and five international film festival awards. A person of eclectic interests, he is an accomplished martial artist, studied languages and art in college before finally returning to his boyhood obsession of entomology (the study of insects). He is also an avid outdoorsman and enjoys bow hunting, fly fishing and living in the mountains for weeks at a time. These days, the Bug Whisperer is a self-proclaimed science evangelist. He started the nonprofit organization, the Gateway Science Project, which uses insects to excite scientific curiosity in kids.

Join us on September 12th, as CSA's Gabriel Freedman & Pratyusava Baral present: Space probes Voyager 1 & 2

Hello to all!!! It may be dreary and rainy right now, but what better way to spend your time than to come down the the cozy back room of the Sugar Maple and learn about SPACE EXPLORATION!?! Gather your family, friends, neighbors and coworkers, bundle them down to Bay View and get ready for some science!!!

In 1977, two space probes, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, were launched from Earth. Each probe carried a small gold record containing a summary of the sights, sounds, languages, and music of home. Today both Voyagers have long left the Solar System and will continue to drift in interstellar space forever. How did we manage to break them free of the Sun's gravity? What have the Voyagers found to this point in their journey? Will anything (or anyone...) find them? And if they are found, how does one go about decoding the record's contents? This talk will answer all these questions and more as we discuss what makes Voyager one of the most scientifically and culturally important space missions of our time.

(image is property of the Coffeeshop Astrophysics group)

Coffeeshop Astrophysics is a public outreach group run by graduate students and postdocs from the Leonard E Parker Center for Gravitation, Cosmology, and Astrophysics at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. They give a series of informal lectures on a wide array of topics relating to astrophysics and science as a whole. The talks occur once a month on Saturdays at 1pm at Anodyne Coffee in Walker's Point. If you would like to learn more about the program, look at past talk topics, or see their upcoming schedule, feel free to visit their website

Gabriel Freedman is a fourth year graduate student in the Physics program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His research focuses on the detection of low-frequency gravitational waves through his owrk as part of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) collaboration. In particular, he is interested in novel computational methods for making astrophysical analyses tractable, and incorporating machine learning and other modern data science techniques into gravitational wave research. Outside of graduate school, Gabriel enjoys listening to music of all genres, and plays the piano in his spare time.

Pratyusava Baral is a second year graduate student in the Physics program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He studies gravitational waves with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) collaboration. His research currently focuses on gravitational wave cosmology, where he studies properties of the Universe using small fluctuations on spacetime. In his spare time, Pratyusava enjoys experimenting with cooking, going on walks, and watching cricket.