Nerd Nite Brighton

Author Archive

Tickets on sale from Rialto Theatre

“If you like nerds, raise your hand. If you don’t, raise your standards.” said author Violet Haberdasher. October’s Nerd Nite lets you raise your hands in the air, like you just don’t care, for the joy of learning about taxidermy, architecture and social psychology.

Plus the geek fest that is our nerd quiz and nerd news. AND with free cake.

Doors open 7.30pm for 8pm start.
Venue: Rialto Theatre.

Our speakers this month:

Kanna Ingleson: The art of taxidermy
It all started quite accidentally with a fish in a box. In the decade that followed, Kanna Ingleson intentionally accumulated a private taxidermy museum that is threatening to overrun her home in St Leonards-on-Sea. Here you will find a fully grown lioness comfortably cohabiting with a winged cat, a bunch of two-headed freaks and a couple of hundred stuffed creatures of varying age, beauty, and value. In this talk, Kanna invites you to discover what motivates an otherwise sensible woman to spend all her money and an unreasonable amount of time investigating and accumulating dead animals. She will talk you through some of the trends, techniques, oddities and personalities that have all contributed to this lively and ever-changing art scene. Kanna is the founder and editor of #taximag, an online and print magazine showcasing the taxidermy art revival.

Duncan Phillips: The importance of Islamic architecture on everything we know about English architecture.
Students who learn about architecture and the history of architecture in England are rarely told the complete story. This talk sets out to explain what it is all about and to fill in the gaps that the history books seem to miss out. Duncan is a chartered building surveyor who specialises in listed buildings and has surveyed thousands of Listed Buildings of every type and age, throughout England and Wales. He also lectures regularly on building surveying, architectural history and building conservation topics to professional groups and to Universities as a visiting lecturer.

Professor John Drury: Crowds, riots and simple behaviours: Beyond contagion
‘Contagion’ usually translates as influence or spread of behaviour that occurs through mere touch, like a disease. Numerous simple behaviours (such as smiling, scratching, yawning, and laughing) and complex phenomena (such as riots) have been described as cases of contagion. A key problem for all these accounts is the evidence of social group boundaries to influence – mere touch is not sufficient. John suggests alternative ways of thinking about unintended influence in groups and crowds, based on the concept of shared social identity. John Drury is Professor of Social Psychology at the University of Sussex. He has researched numerous crowd events including the Hajj, the London bombings of July 7th 2005, the Hillsborough disaster and the 2011 English riots. His research has informed the training of the UK Fire and Rescue Service and crowd safety managers and stewards. He is currently the editor of the British Journal of Social Psychology.

Hosted by Dr Mick Taylor

£4 Regular Nerds
£3 Unemployed/NUS/65+ Nerds
Tickets link

We regularly sell out- so if you buy a ticket you can’t use, please let us know on our Facebook event page so we can ensure disorganised nerds who forgot to buy a ticket in time can still come.

Photo in poster from #taximag

We’re back to nerd school this month with a bumper knowledge harvest where we’ll learn about robots, volcanoes and tango dance.

Plus the geek fest that is our nerd quiz and nerd news. AND with free cake.

Tickets on sale from Rialto theatre.

Doors open 7.30pm for 8pm start.

Our speakers this month:

Bianca Fogah: Volcanoes – The devil you know vs the devil you don’t

Do you really know what a volcano is? How do they work? What kinds of damage they cause and how we mitigate and manage them? The world of volcanos is vast, destructive and quite often devastating, from pyroclastic flows to magma chambers and eruptions that take out entire towns how to do we keep ourselves safe? In this talk, I will review what volcanoes are, what the differences are and how this can be the difference between life and death.

Bianca Fogah is a Physical Geography and Geology graduate from Brighton University. Since the age of 11, she has been fascinated with all things volcanology, seismology and generally destructive. Bianca currently works in administration but in her spare time with many passions for all forms of science, she wanted to share her geeky insights with you into the world of volcanoes.

Margarita Steinberg: Argentine Tango – Dancing our tangled lives

Argentine Tango, the passionate and subtle dance from Buenos Aires, has intrigued the world for generations. This talk will reveal the lesser-known aspects of the dance, and introduce a groundbreaking innovative application of its insights, including a live demo, if circumstances permit. Margarita first caught the Tango bug in 2000, started teaching Argentine Tango in early 2010’s, and talking about it publicly in 2013, with a TEDx talk on how tango seeps into the lives of those who dance it. She recently showcased an innovative learning format using tango improvisation at a conference at the University of Sussex.

Prof Thomas Nowotny: Autonomous Drones and the “Brains on Board” project

In this talk, Thomas will give an overview of some exciting recent work on the control of drones (quad copters), their autonomy and research in the “Brains on Board” project, in which he and his collaborators try to emulate the brains of bees and flies in order to build more robust autonomous robots.

Thomas Nowotny received his PhD in theoretical physics in 2001 from the University of Leipzig and worked for five years at the University of California, San Diego. In 2007 he joined the University of Sussex, where he is now a Professor of Informatics and the Director for Research and Knowledge Exchange at the School of Engineering and Informatics. His research interests include olfaction in animals and machines, GPU accelerated scientific computing, hybrid brain-computer systems, and bio-inspired machine learning and robotic control.

Hosted by Dr Mick Taylor

£4 Regular Nerds
£3 Unemployed/NUS/65+ Nerds

We regularly sell out- so if you buy a ticket you can’t use, please let us know on the Facebook page so we can ensure disorganised nerds who forgot to buy a ticket in time can still come.

Twitter: @brightonnerd
Facebook event
Tickets link

Who needs the World Cup when you’ve got Nerd Nite Brighton? We have passion, excitement and superb human beings – without the crushing misery of a penalty shoot out. This month we have our usual diverse range of evidence based entertainment with some top quality speakers sharing their knowledge of rhinos, chocolate and programming.

Doors open 7.30pm for 8pm start.

£4 Regular Nerds
£3 Unemployed/NUS/65+ Nerds
Tickets link

We regularly sell out- so if you buy a ticket you can’t use, please let us know on the Facebook page so we can ensure disorganised nerds who forgot to buy a ticket in time can still come.

Our speakers this month:

Jen Lindsey-Clark: The art, science and magic of chocolate

From a bean to a button, how can you make it do the conga and why is it not a good idea to send the Queen her head in a box. Jen Lindsey-Clark, Chief Chocolatician and creator of edible silliness such as the ‘Cumberbunny’ and a ten foot long ‘orient express’ chocolate train will share her nerdish passion for chocolate.

After a 10 year career as a pastry chef and wedding cake maker, Jen focused her attentions completely on chocolate and its endless possibilities as a medium for art and choccy props.

Jen has a chocolate workshop by the river Adur in Shoreham and when she’s not pushing the echelons of chocolate sculpture, Jen runs workshops and parties for chocoholics of all ages. She also shares her chocolate skills with students at Seaford College and visits other schools to open a window into her wonderful world of chocolate and the importance of that old saying ‘ a little of what you like does you good’. … and yes there will be samples.

Dr Kate Howland – Programming Tools for Non-Programmers

Kate Howland is a Lecturer in Interaction Design at University of Sussex, where she teaches on human-computer interaction, game design and cognitive science modules in the Department of Informatics. Her research examines how non-technical users can be more involved in the design and development of novel technologies. She most often works with user groups that face greater barriers to taking an active role in technology design, including children and older people. In this talk she will discuss the design of novice and end-user programming environments, highlighting the barriers to getting started with programming, and some of the approaches used by interface designers to tackle these. She’ll also talk about her research on the use of natural language in programming environments, including her latest project on voice-user interfaces in smart homes.

Mxolisi Sibanda- Rhinos! Rhinos! Rhinos!

Mx is Regional Manager for East Africa at WWF-UK. His role involves managing a portfolio of projects that we invest into in East Africa that include black rhinos, forest, marine and freshwater resources conservation in Kenya and Tanzania. He is an ecologist by training with degrees from Cambridge University, Wits University in South Africa and the University of Zimbabwe.

Hosted by Dr Partha Das

Twitter: @brightonnerd
Facebook event
Tickets link

Nerd Nite 52: A Midsummer Nerd’s Dream

Thursday 21st June, Rialto Theatre
Tickets

It’s the longest day, so make use of it with some top class nerdery. We have a very diverse selection of talks this month: from HIV and mental health, to bats and physics. With added cake and beer. As Shakespeare didn’t say, “Lord, what nerds these mortals be”.

Doors open 7.30pm for 8pm start.

£4 Regular Nerds
£3 Unemployed/NUS/65+ Nerds

We regularly sell out- so if you buy a ticket you can’t use, please let us know on the Facebook page so we can ensure disorganised nerds who forgot to buy a ticket in time can still come.

Our speakers this month:

Fungai Murau: Challenging your ancestors: mental health interventions for people living with HIV

A talk about how cultural norms are hard to challenge even when your life depends on it. Fungai is a passionate researcher in the HIV field with an interest in mental health and educating adolescent girls in making informed choices about their lives respecting their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Fungai has an MA in poverty and development from the Institute of Development studies and her dissertation focused on the mental health of HIV positive undocumented migrant women living in the UK. She sits on the SWIFT steering group and is a trustee on the Sophia Forum and AMAZE boards. Fungai currently works at the International HIV/AIDS Alliance and is starting her PhD at the end of this year. Her other passions include writing children’s books and gardening.

Katherine Halsall: Blind bats? Seeing in a world of sound

Bats are incredibly important worldwide for pollinating important crops, but many species worldwide are at risk and populations have seen considerable decline. Bats have evolved a complex method of echolocation which allows them to catch insects as small as a midge by producing calls and listening to echoes bouncing off the insect. Different species have evolved unique call shapes, frequencies and patterns to catch their particular prey. Research into bat echolocation in recent years has been used to reduce the impact of large development projects on bats.

Kathy Halsall is an ecologist at Mott MacDonald. Her work involves consulting on major UK projects including coastal defence schemes, new highways and rail schemes. Kathy has a particular interest in bats. She previously worked for African Bat Conservation in Malawi leading the urban research team on a new project to discover which species of bats were present in Lilongwe. She currently volunteers in her spare time for Bats Without Borders, a charity working to conserve bats in southern Africa, on the communications and media team.

Lily Asquith: Big Questions in Particle Physics

Particle physics asks mind-tingling questions about the nature of the universe: ‘why is there mass?’, ‘what is dark matter?’, or even ‘are there extra dimensions?’. These questions are our focus at the Large Hadron Collider. The vast, complex machines and computing challenges we have taken on in pursuit of answers to these questions are equally fascinating, from magnets operating at temperatures colder than space, to training computer programmes to learn by themselves.

Dr Lily Asquith has a PhD in High Energy Physics. After a four-year post at Argonne National Lab, Chicago. Lily was awarded a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin fellowship in 2014 and is now working in the Experimental Particle Physics group at the University of Sussex, analysing data collected with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider, CERN.

Hosted by Anna Downie

Facebook: www.facebook.com/NerdNiteBrighton/
Twitter: @brightonnerd
Tickets: www.rialtotheatre.co.uk/whats-on/events/nerd-nite

When are fish good for your brain? When you learn about them at Nerd Nite of course! This month we are celebrating recreational maths, migrating fish and the murky world of political board games. All with added cake, beer and quizzing. Be there and be square.

Doors open 7.30pm for 8pm start.
Venue: Rialto Theatre

£4 Regular Nerds
£3 Unemployed/NUS/65+ Nerds
Tickets link

We regularly sell out- so if you buy a ticket you can’t use, please let us know on the Facebook page so we can ensure disorganised nerds who forgot to buy a ticket in time can still come.

Our speakers this month:

Adam Atkinson: MathsJam, Semi-Chestnuts and other Recreational Maths

Adam runs the Brighton branch of MathsJam, to the extent that anyone can be said to. MathsJam is a monthly event at which people do/ talk about recreational maths, puzzles, games and similar. Adam did a degree in maths in the UK some time ago, then moved to Rome and joined the recreational maths community in Italy. This led to him contributing to some articles about an obscure Italian gambling myth called the Samaritani Formula (about which he gets occasional hate mail even now). He has run a games and puzzles stand for the University of Pisa Open Week for 15+ years, where students call him “L’Omino dei Giochi” (the little games guy). Given that he doesn’t work for the University of Pisa and his stand bears no resemblance to anything people would do if they signed up there, he is also known as “Pisa University Fraud Department”. Adam is a regular at the annual UK MathsJam, the Gathering for Gardner, and the Recreational Maths Colloquia in Lisbon. He will only tell the barometer story at Nerd Nite if it proves to be absolutely necessary.

Kathy Hughes: The amazing migrations of freshwater fish

Kathy Hughes is a freshwater ecologist working for WWF where she works to protect the biodiversity of some of the world’s most wildlife rich rivers. It’s Kathy’s second time at Nerd Nite- she previously spoke about one of her favourite species – the freshwater eel. This time, Kathy is marking World Fish Migration Day (yes, it really exists) on 21st April: a day to celebrate the world’s amazing migratory fish and raise awareness of the need for free and flowing rivers. To complete their life cycle, many species of fish embark on migrations between our rivers and the ocean. Migrations can be thousands of kilometres long and migrating fish have developed an array of physiological and behavioural adaptations to make these journeys possible. This presentation will introduce you to the lives and journeys of some of the most well-known migratory fish such as salmon, lamprey, freshwater eel, giant catfishes and sturgeons.

Ben Bailey: The Political History of Board Games

Ben Bailey is a journalist, musician and gamer. The time he spends on each is probably totally out of whack. He runs the SOURCE website and was formerly the listings and reviews editor on the magazine. As well as writing stuff for other publications he also finds the time to play in various bands and once came 4th place in a BMX tournament. His talk explores the strange connections between the murky world of political propaganda and the seemingly innocent pastime of playing board games. Topics include the feminist origins of Monopoly, the disastrous game that Donald Trump made in the 80s all about himself and the family-friendly game from Nazi Germany that even the SS wanted to ban. You will never look at a plastic beaker in the same way.

Hosted by Dr Mick Taylor

Twitter: @brightonnerd
Facebook: www.facebook.com/NerdNiteBrighton/
Tickets link

It’s our 50th Nerd Nite! Come celebrate with evidence-based entertainment, cake and beer. Be there and be square.

Doors open 7.30pm for 8pm start.

£4 Regular Nerds
£3 Unemployed/NUS/65+ Nerds
Tickets from Rialto Theatre

We regularly sell out- so if you buy a ticket you can’t use, please let us know on the Facebook page so we can ensure disorganised nerds who forgot to buy a ticket in time can still come.

Our speakers this month:

Dr Mahmoud Maina: Inspiring the future generation of Africans using science

Mahmoud Maina is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Sussex studying neurodegeneration. Mahmoud obtained his BSc in Human Anatomy from the University of Maiduguri, and then lectured at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital Maiduguri, Nigeria. In 2011, Mahmoud joined the University of Sussex for an MSc in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience. He was then awarded a Chancellor’s International Research Scholarship (CIRS) for a Ph.D in the Serpell Lab on the role of nuclear Tau in Alzheimer’s disease, which he recently completed. In his spare time, Mahmoud is a passionate science communicator, for which he was awarded a science communication award in 2017 by the Royal Society of Biology. He founded the TReND in Africa outreach programme and serves as the outreach coordinator. TReND have inspired thousands of students about science and continue to enhance public understanding of science. Mahmoud recently became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts for the purpose of enlarging science through public engagement in Africa.

Dr Katy Petherick: Science, the public and a chocolate lab

After investigating cancer for 6 years, Katy now spends her time promoting opportunities for scientists to inform, collaborate and co-produce research with the general public. She currently works at the University of Sussex as Public Engagement Coordinator, and leads initiatives around Brighton that increases interaction with science: she co-founded the British Science Association Brighton and Hove branch and STEMbusters. She is passionate about promoting minorities in science, supporting local activities such as Soapbox Science Brighton and Out and About STEM, and believes if anything can get people participating in science, a chocolate lab can.

Nick Sayers: STEAM-powered! Adventures in science and art

Nick Sayers is a science-inspired artist based in Brighton. He has made drawing machines from bicycles, six-month-exposure pinhole cameras from beer cans, geodesic shelter domes from estate agent signs, and has Cycled The Solar System in Goa. He has shown his work internationally at art and science events in countries including India, Canada, Azerbaijan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Holland, USA, Portugal and Hungary. Nick will discuss his work, and how it has communicated science to a wider public in a creative, quirky and engaging way.

Hosted by Nerd Nite Brighton founder, Partha Das

Facebook: www.facebook.com/NerdNiteBrighton/
Twitter: @brightonnerd
Tickets from Rialto Theatre

Photo in poster by Nick Sayers

What could be more romantic than a night spent with beer, cake and some of Brighton’s finest nerds? Show your Valentine’s love for knowledge at Nerd Nite in February.

Doors open 7.30pm for 8pm start.

Venue: Rialto Theatre

£4 Regular Nerds
£3 Unemployed/NUS/65+ Nerds

Tickets available online

We regularly sell out- so if you buy a ticket you can’t use, please let us know on the Facebook page so we can ensure disorganised nerds who forgot to buy a ticket in time can still come.

Our speakers this month:

Heena Jagatia: How Can We Avoid the Post-Antibiotic Era?’

Heena is a final year PhD student at the University of Sussex. She studied Biomedical Science at St. George’s and then did an MSc at the London school of Hygeine and Tropical Medicine, developing a deep interest with bacteria. Her research looks at antibiotic production in response to stress in Streptomyces. Heena’s talk will introduce the well-reported and feared topic of antibiotic resistance, how and why it occurs, and what can be done to prevent the start of an era where antibiotics fail to fight the simplest of infections.

Karl Waugh: There’s madness in the pattern: one person’s stumble through using mathematics and software to make strange sounds.

Karl M V Waugh is a multi-media artist working often with software, generative art and noise / a musician with a load of bands* / has a doctorate in mathematics / a poet / a dad / employed as a software engineer. He believes that Roquefort cheese may be an embodiment of god.
*The Emperors Of Ice Cream / God’s Teeth And The Interstellar Tropics / Binnsclagg / The Zero Map / etc.

Aimee Eckert: Your cells through time: how broken is your DNA?

Aimee is a final year PhD student at the University of Sussex Genome Damage & Stability Centre. She researches how cells control their division, focusing on certain types of breast cancer cell to understand more about how they grow. Aimee is also a keen science communicator who enjoys talking with people about science at CRUK events and during school visits, and also by poking fun at it by performing science comedy at Science Showoff, Bright Club and as part of her science flavoured cabaret: Dr Jiggs Bowson’s Charming Science Friends. In this talk Aimee will outline how cells do the miraculous job of growing & repairing themselves (and by extension, our bodies) every day and the importance of wearing sunscreen.

Hosted by Mick Taylor

www.facebook.com/NerdNiteBrighton/
Twitter: @brightonnerd

‘Twas 11 days before Christmas when all through Brighton, not a creature was stirring, not even a nerd. That’s because they will all be at our Nerd Nite Christmas special. Alongside the usual excellent talks and cake, we’ll be having a science-themed carol singalong and a Plasticine modelling competition.

7.30 for an 8pm start
£4 Regular Nerds or £3 Unemployed/Students/65+ Nerds. We usually sell out so get your tickets quick!

Our speakers this month:

Dr Peggy St Jacques- The Ghosts of Christmas Past: Memory, Visual Perspective, and Imagination

Peggy L. St. Jacques studied at the University of Toronto and Duke University, and then worked at Harvard University before starting as a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Sussex. Her primary research focus is to understand the cognitive and neural mechanisms that support memory for events, including autobiographical experiences from one’s personal past and realistic experiences encoded in a more controlled setting. In particular, she is interested in how long-term representations of memory are modified via retrieval related mechanisms. She has also examined how memories change as we age, the influence of emotion on memory, and memory related changes in dementia and post-traumatic stress disorder. One of Peggy’s favourite autobiographical memories is when she visited a Balsamic Vinegar House in the Reggio Emilia area in Italy.

Dr Alice Eldridge- Learning to Listen to Biodiversity

Alice Eldridge is a research fellow and musician at the University of Sussex. Her work spans music, ecology & technology and includes ecosystemic approaches to music-making and computational methods for acoustic ecology. In this talk she will introduce the emerging field of Ecoacoustics – which investigates the ecological role of sound – and share results from field work in the Ecuadorian Amazon investigating the potential for using computers that listen to the dawn chorus to monitor biodiversity.

And Emily MacDonald will be accompanying us on her accordion for the carol singalong.

Tickets link
Twitter: @brightonnerd
Facebook: NerdNiteBrighton

It’s a nerd nite melange this month! We’ve got something for everyone- from pedagogy to social lies to zombies. If that’s not enough, how about free cake, beer, nerd news and the chance to win one of our highly coveted nerd mugs? Let your inner nerd run free!

7.30 for an 8pm start
£4 Regular Nerds or £3 Unemployed/Students/65+ Nerds. We usually sell out so get your tickets quick!

Tickets available from Rialto Box Office

Our speakers for November:

– Liz Sage: Pedagogy as a playful art
– Nicos Georgiou: The curious connections between a Zombie apocalypse and highway traffic
– Judith Good – Social Lies We Tell Ourselves

Dr Liz Sage is a writer, poet and Teaching Fellow in Teaching, Learning and Assessment in Higher Education at Sussex University. Having spent nearly a decade researching terrorism, she became fascinated with the way our educational cultures produce forms of knowledge which perpetuate violence, apathy and powerlessness – so decided to try and inspire the next generation of lecturers by convening Sussex University’s Starting to Teach programme. Her most recent endeavours include writing her first novel, developing her visual art practice and trying to re-invent university education from the inside out.

Dr Nicos Georgiou is a Senior Lecturer in Mathematics at the University of Sussex. He was born in Cyprus and got his BSc from the University of Athens before moving to buried-under-snow Wisconsin for 5 years and buried-under-snow Utah for his PhD and postdoc. His talk will discuss how a zombie invasion is mathematically the same as queues in series and the same as highway traffic. Models that can tell you when traffic will be horrible are discussed.

Prof Judith Good is a Professor in Informatics at the University of Sussex. She is interested in designing technologies to empower people. Her recent research focuses on people with disabilities, particularly autistic people. This research has led her to question whether researchers/designers, who are often “neurotypical” (i.e. with no disabilities such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia, etc.) might be unwittingly holding disabled people to higher standards than they do themselves, taking a stance of “do as I say, not as I do”.

Hosted by Dr Mick Taylor

Brighton.nerdnite.com
Twitter: @brightonnerd