One of my favorite reasons for not having time to post here is our new SciPop Talks! series hosted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries in collaboration with the UNL Department of Chemistry and Doane College.
Check out this great Storify of Dr. Raychelle Burks’ talk on how to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. Video coming soon by popular demand! In the meantime fight smarter not harder and check out the webpage for her talk for related books, movies, links, and more!
Below is a quick video ACS Reactions made with Raychelle based on her talk.
The Mark Griep’s talk on Alien Biochemistry in the Movies even includes an interview with an attendee. Check out the webpage for related materials including Dr. Griep’s book ReAction! Chemistry in the Movies.
There are two questions everyone seems to want to know the answer to. Are the talks successful and how did they come about? So far we’ve have four talks and 200+ attendees! (Note I did not count library staff and student workers, or journalists, in this number.)
The talks came about mainly because we finally had the right group of people at the right time. Rebecca Lai and Raychelle Burks organize the speakers, Joanie Barnes organizes the space, library support, and publicity. I primarily organize the webpage, books for checkout display. We all brainstorm what to do next, how we can tie other outreach events into future outreach activities, what’s working and what’s not. All of us are well connected but with very different networks. Interestingly I am the only person who knew all the individuals before this project started.
In many ways this is a prime example of what I do, connecting people with the same interests and passions, this time is unique in that for once I stayed involved. Usually the people I connect are working on projects outside my scope and/or areas of interest. You never really know what the future will bring, but you put together four very driven people and that odds are in your favor. We’re already planning on who else we need to collaborate with on campus, Office of Research and Economic Development for one, to capitalize on our momentum to do some serious science outreach and education.