Nerd Nite Brighton #6: 3/10/13
1. My life with the alpine time travellers – Dr David Bramwell
This one-man cottage industry and Brighton legend is the creator of the successful Cheeky Guide series, founder and host of Brighton’s Catalyst Club and singer-songwriter in the band Oddfellows Casino (Nightjar Records). His music and spoken word material have been featured on BBC radio 1, 3,4 and 6. David has written books on subjects ranging from difficult words to sexuality for Penguin, Harper Collins and DK, has spoken at and hosted TEDx events and entertained festival and cinema audiences with “Sing-along-a-Wickerman”. Tonight he’ll be telling us about the mysterious and extraordinary community of Damanhur in the Italian Alps…
2. Beyond the bar chart: creative data visualisation – Dr Peter Cook
Peter Cook’s interest in data visualisation probably started at school when he drew his first bar chart. Through his engineering degree he always enjoyed explaining difficult concepts using visuals and he went on to complete a PhD in the visualisation of complex surfaces such as car bodies. He’s now focusing his energy on bringing beautiful data visualisations to the web. He’ll be talking about how the latest in web-based tools is allowing programmers and designers to become much more creative with presenting and telling stories with data.
3. Spinal cord injury research: wise man’s dream or fool’s game? – Dr Leanne Lewis-Ramer
Leanne hails/visits/is here from Vancouver, Canada, where she has spent more than 10 years studying spinal cord injury at the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries (ICORD http://icord.org/), a research centre that houses clinicians, biologists and engineers with a shared interest in recovery after spinal cord injury. She is thrilled to be in London on a one-year Fellowship at King’s College London. She’ll be telling us of the trials, tribulations and perhaps folly of trying to regenerate spinal cords. Oh yes – she loves beer.
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There’ll be the usual drinks, japes, quizzes, music and of course free cake. So do swing by! We’ll be upstairs at the Caroline of Brunswick and looking forward to seeing you.
£4 regular nerds and £3 student nerds
Doors 7.30pm for an 8pm start
Tickets from here!
pop by the facebook page and follow us on twitter
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Nerd Nite Brighton #5: 12/9/13
It’s that time again! Come and join us for lots more nerdiness in beautiful sunny Brighton.
Like an excited vegan in Infinity Foods (other health food shops are available), we’ve been sourcing the best speakers to keep you enthralled and entertained.
This month:
1. The embodiment of engagement – Dr Harry Witchel
Dr. Harry Witchel is Discipline Leader in Physiology at the Brighton and Sussex Medical School. In 2004 he received the national honour of being awarded The Charles Darwin Award Lecture by the British Science Association. His interdisciplinary research uses motion capture and time series video analysis to quantify nonverbal behaviour as a measure of human-computer interaction and interpersonal engagement. He regularly appears all over the world as a commentator on radio and television, and in 2012 he appeared on BBC Radio 4’s You and Yours and Word of Mouth, talking about an experiment he ran on thousands of people on the busiest clubbing night in Brighton — which demonstrated that music can change people’s body language to be less territorial. His latest work is on how we comprehend the body language of engagement and this will form his the subject of his talk tonight.
2. How do animals get from A to B? – Dr Paul Graham
Ever seen a trail of ants marching along with apparent design and purpose? As a Psychology student, Paul was interested in Artificial Intelligence and the prospect of building brains. Unfortunately this turns out to be a hard problem, even for supposedly simple brains like those of insects. The brain-building plans are still on hold and Paul has spent the last 15 years at Sussex University studying how insects produce sophisticated behaviour, even with their ‘simple’ brains.
3. Run for your life: the psychobiology of marathons – Dr Iain Moore
Flying in from Belfast via Newcastle for NNB this evening is Consultant Nephrologist Iain Moore. When not saving lives, listening to Kurt Vile, or critiquing the latest Van Sant film, he can be found running marathons at various exotic destinations across the globe. In fact he’s just back from running 1250km from Brussels to Bratislava… Why does he do it? How does he do it? So put down that pizza slice – combining his nerdish love of physiology, psychology and running, Iain will be telling us what drives endurance athletes at both a cellular and a cognitive level.
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There’ll be the usual drinks, japes, quizzes, music and of course free cake. So do swing by! We’ll be upstairs at the Caroline of Brunswick and looking forward to seeing you.
£4 regular nerds and £3 student nerds
Doors 7.30pm for an 8pm start
tickets from here
pop by the facebook page and follow us on twitter
Nerd Nite Brighton #4: 8/8/13
The August Nerd Nite Brighton certainly has a medical theme to it and we’re privileged to have 3 real doctors gracing our stage.
1. Old Person Whisperer introduces the emerging field of comics and medicine – Dr Muna Al-Jawad
Dr Al-Jawad is a consultant geriatrician at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton. She is also doing a PhD in the form of a graphic novel. She chaired the 4th International Conference of Comics and Medicine in July 2013. Have a look at some of her work here.
2. Large Organisations and Culture Change: Taming the Wicked – Dr Mark Edwards
Philanthropic vascular surgeon, part-time guerilla psycho-sociologist and would-be agent of change, Mark has spent 16 years within the NHS giving him practical insight into the astounding complexity that inhibits change within large organisations. Challenging the status quo requires a movement that understands urgency, recognises complexity, resonates with the grass-roots and empowers it to evolve. Can he give us the secret to NHS success?
3. Organ donation: A Moral Maze – Dr Hannah Maple
Despite living in Crawley, Hannah managed to get into King’s College London Medical School not just once, but twice. Having graduated in 2007 she pursued a surgical career before taking a break from clinical work in 2011 to do a PhD. Based at Guy’s Hospital, London her research examines the psychological aspects of living kidney donation from the perspective of the donor, seeking to understand more about what donors get out of the process. She has recently conducted the world’s largest study of non-directed altruistic organ donors (people who donate their organs to strangers) and will tonight discuss the results of this alongside other ethical and legal controversies in transplantation.
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This month we’re at the Caroline of Brunswick (39 Ditchling Road near the Level) – £4 entry (£3 student nerds) as usual – looking forward to seeing you there!
PS. If you haven’t already come follow us on twitter and facebook!
Nerd Nite Brighton #3 + After Party: 22/6/13
It’s that time again!
Actually the calendar savvy amongst you will note that we are NOT on a Thursday this month but Saturday night.
We’ve moved venue once again (in our quest to make sure everyone gets a seat) and we will be upstairs at Good Companions in Seven Dials.
We are very excited again to have some top class speakers with us this month. We have our first international speaker too (all the way from the United States of Canadia):
1. How to find Starbursts in space – Ms Charlotte Clarke
from the Astronomy Unit at the University of Sussex and will be our Brian Cox for the evening. Her research in extragalactic astronomy revolves around far-infrared data from the Herschel Space Observatory, helping to get to grips with the formation of galaxies when the Universe was less than half its current age. She’s also heavily involved in public engagement in Brighton and the surrounding areas.
2. How strong are earthworms and can they make choices? – Dr Robert Stovold
Robert is a very busy man. He juggles running the Brighton and Hove Humanist Society, Philosophy in Pubs, his role in the National Secular Society, writing books and singing in various karaoke haunts around town with his daily work with B&H Council. However tonight he will be returning to his (literal) roots and his PhD in Soil Science to talk to us about earthworm burrowing.
3. Whistleblowing in the age of Wikileaks: From the Pentagon Papers to Cablegate – Dr Patrick McCurdy, University of Ottawa, Canada.
Flying over especially for Nerd Nite Brighton (well… kinda) Patrick’s research examines the representation of politically contentious issues in an age of media saturation. He received his PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2009. His thesis examined how radical social movement actors think about and interact with media at the site of protest. He is widely published and his book Beyond WikiLeaks: Implications for the Future of Communications, Journalism and Society released this year forms some of the basis of his talk tonight.
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There’ll be the usual quizzes and music but to celebrate our 3rd event we’re also having a bit of a party afterwards so it would be great if you could come and hang out. Perhaps throw some shapes (as long as they’re geometric and congruent) on the dance floor?
Looking forward to seeing all your lovely nerdy faces. Be there AND be square!
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Doors as usual at 7.30pm, nerdy party till 1am!
Tickets from here or on the door
Nerd Nite Brighton Episode 2 – A New Venue
Attention Brighton Nerds!
We are moving!
Partly due to a need for more space (some of you poor nerds had to stand last time) Nerd Nite Brighton #2 will be held Downstairs at the Caxton Arms at 7.30pm on Thursday May 9th 2013.
Pleased to welcome:
Dr John Turner, Reader in Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Sussex:
“Black leaves: Building a rational economy one molecule at a time”
Kate Doran, PhD student in cognitive and behavioural neuroscience
“The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Addict”
Finally a nerdy greeting to Dr Refik Gokmen, National Institute for Health Research Clinical Lecturer in Renal Medicine at King’s College London:
“The Original Nerds: Travels through Western Turkey”
Be there and be square! Looking forward to seeing y’all!
Thank you all for NNB#1
Thanks to everyone who came last night. What a fantastic turn out and we hope you enjoyed it! Lots of learning, beer and giggling so mission accomplished.
A big thank you to our speakers Drs Thomas Nowotny, Shailesh Shah and Ben Afzali who entertained us throughout the evening with tales of smelling bees, massive sharks and tight black t-shirts (TBTs).
Congratulations to Felix on his epic quiz win and also thank you to the team of nerd helpers.
Please drop me a line on here or through the facebook page if you have any thoughts for speakers, comments or want to be involved.
Next one is May 9th – hope to see you there!
Much Love
P
11/4/13: Nerd Nite Brighton #1
Good Afternoon Brightonians, Hovians and Beyondians
We hope you’re enjoying this incredible weather we’re having on the coast this last week. We’re frankly sick of the humidity, the blazing sunshine and the sound of crickets in this awful humidity. A bit of snow in April wouldn’t go amiss eh?
Almost all set for Thursday for our inaugural meeting (and the inaugural UK Nerd Nite too!) Our talks are:
“How does the brain make sense of a mixture of mixtures? – Lessons from the honey bee.” – Dr Thomas Nowotny
“If Carlsberg made fish – adventures with Carcharocles megalodon” – Dr Shailesh Shah
“Thrown to the wolves – an experiment in social networking” – Dr Ben Afzali
We’re planning to open doors at 7.30pm. It’s upstairs at the Eagle and 4 squid entry (3 squid for you lucky students). Do spread the word, please bring anyone and everyone and make sure you’re in your nerdiest outfits.
If you can stick one of our posters (below) somewhere that’d be fab too.
Finally please swing by the facebook page and share.
Looking forward to it!
Much Love
April 11th
Hola everybody!
We’re booked into the Eagle pub in the North Laine for April 11th 2013 and have a great bunch of speakers lined up. More details to follow!
Looking forward to seeing you guys there only 4 quid (3 quid NUS)
Partha
WOWSERS! I CANNOT BELIEVE MY EYES!
Dear all
There’s been a little bit of stopping, starting and then stopping again with the first Brighton, no first UK, Nerd Nite.
It has been a long time coming. Having said that I can’t give you an exact date right now. HOWEVER, watch this space in the next few weeks for details of the first one. There are some great speakers lined up and poised to get going.
In the meantime, relax your eyes with this beautiful visualisation of wind patterns across the US.
Cheers a million
Partha Das
Brighton Nerd Nite Curator
PS. Do let us know if you have something suitably nerdish you’d like to present – form on the right!
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