Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Science Cafe Spring lineup announced; First cafe in a week, 2/26

The Rochester Science Cafe is excited to announce our lineup for the remainder of the Spring series as we continue through our 10th year. Below is the lineup of the remaining talks.

Our net talk will be a week from today, Tuesday February 26, at 7pm at the Pittsford Plaza Barnes and Noble. As always, cookies, coffee and conversation upstairs in the community room.

We thank everyone for their patronage for this past decade, and look forward to a
few more!

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February 26: Dr. Joel Kastner (RIT)
Professor, Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science and
Astrophysical Science and Technology Program
"Needles in a haystack: the search for (and study of) young stars near Earth"
Thousands of extrasolar planets ("exoplanets") have been discovered over the past two decades. Astronomers seeking to understand the astonishing variety of planetary masses and orbital separations that characterize these myriad exoplanet systems, as well as the earliest evolution of our own solar system, must carefully study exoplanet birthplaces: dusty, molecule-rich “protoplanetary” disks orbiting young stars. Here, I'll talk about recent advances in the study of protoplanetary disks using the recently commissioned Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) radio interferometer as well as the latest generation of adaptive optics (AO) cameras on the world’s largest (8-meter-class) optical/infrared telescopes. My talk will focus on ALMA and AO studies of the nearest-known disks; these young neighbors afford opportunities to image disk structures and chemistry on solar system size scales. Also, I'll talk about finding the source of the air we breathe, from an astronomical perspective.

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March 26: Dr. Lea Michel (RIT)
Assoc. Professor, School of Chemistry and Materals Science
Chair, Women in Science program
"Prevention, Protection, and Diagnosis: One protein’s role in multiple diseases"


April 23: Dr. Ernest Fokoue (RIT)
Assoc. Professor, School of Mathematical Sciences


May 28: Dr. Andre Hudson (RIT)
Professor and Head, Thomas H Gosnell School of Life Sciences
"Public Health Alert: Why should you care about antibiotic resistance"