Cafe Scientifique Twin Ports wouldn’t exist without the dedicated scientists, researchers, and discussion leaders who have given their time to lead our events.
2025 Event Leaders
March, 2025: Representatives from East, Denfeld, Harbor City, and Marshall, Meet Duluth’s Youth Climate Leaders
February, 2025: Kasey, Meera, Tom, and Karin – Ecologists and Artists , Create a St. Louis River Mosaic
January, 2025: Mic Rice, The Science and Art of Observation
2024 Event Leaders
December, 2024: Great Lakes Aquarium & Cafe Sci Twin Ports Field Trip! A special science night at the Great Lakes Aquarium
November, 2024: Dan Nolan, Science, International Exchange, and Society
October, 2024: Cafe Sci Twin Ports, A Spooky Night with Toxoplasma Gondii and other bloodsucking, mind-controlling, socially-manipulative parasites (Cafe ScientifEEK! – Thursday, October 17th)
October, 2024: Special Event, Meet and Greet with Internationally Renowned Climate Activists, Luisa Neubauer and Helena Marschall
September, 2024: Cafe Sci Twin Ports and Starry Skies Superior, 7th Annual Space Trivia for Celebrate the Night Sky Week
August, 2024: Emma Verstraete, Urban Archaeology: The best gossip is under your feet
July, 2024: Science After Dark: A Special 18+ Event with Nerd Nite Duluth, Elizabete Romanovska (Adult Sex-Ed Discussion) and Ivy X (Burlesque Dancing and Body Positivity and Empowerment talk)
June, 2024: Noland Michels, Predicting Walleye Growth Rates
May, 2024: Cafe Sci Twin Ports and Twin Ports Early-Career Researchers, Science Board Game Night and Social
April, 2024: Molly Wick, Storytelling: A Method to Imagine Transformative Futures
March, 2024: Neil Gilbert, Half a million dollars for an eagle
February, 2024: Kathleen Torso, Exploring Cumulative Environmental Factors on Health Outcomes with Native Nations
January, 2024: E. Otto Johnson, The OMICS Revolution: Big Data Meets Biology
2023 Event Leaders
December, 2023: Clara Smoniewski, mRNA, Mitochondria, and Modulation
November, 2023: Shawna Weaver, Climate Grief
October, 2023: (The 2nd ever) Cafe ScientifiEEK! Twin Ports Mad Science Music Mash, Wussow’s Concert Cafe
September, 2023: Cafe Sci Twin Ports and Starry Skies Superior, SPACE TRIVIA @ Amity Coffee as part of Celebrate the night sky week
July, 2023: Fred Davis, Journey Inside the Earth: Using High-Pressure and High-Temperature Experiments to Study Earth’s Mantle
June, 2023: Graham Greve, Cats, Cakes, and Other Quantum Analogies
May, 2023: Kate Murray, Lake Superior Estuary Trivia
April, 2023: Eddie Tu, Project RattleCam: Democratizing Data for Citizen Science
March, 2023: Mindy Granley, Planning the future of solar in Duluth
February, 2023: Max Gatyas, The Philosophy of Science: A crash course of method, truth, and meaning in science
January, 2023: Courtney Larson and PJ Torres, Freshwater Community Ecology: Staycationing with invertebrates (Now at Duluth Folk School!)
2022 Event Leaders
October – December 2022: ~ Organizational Break ~ Events to resume January 2023
September, 2022: Space Trivia 5 – Celebrate the night sky week, co-hosted with Starry Skies North IDA and Amity Coffee
July, 2022: The Sub Superior Festival Organizers from The Embassy (Duluth), Subscussion | Sub Superior Tech & Subvisions Livestream (Video link)
June, 2022: Janelle Turner-Miller and Stacie Renne of Warrior Printress Letterpress and Design, Letterpress: Survival in a digital world
May, 2022: Lynn Goerdt, The Audacity to Flourish: Messages from our mental health crisis
April, 2022: Bjorn Bergman, Making data-driven seed choices for gardeners and farmers
March, 2022: Rosayln Putland, What do fishes hear underwater? A song of ice and vessels | Science lunch (Apr 7th)
February, 2022: Twin Ports Science Celebration, Social, and Trivia, led by Nate Pollesch and Kleighton Smoniewski of Cafe Sci Twin Ports (Mar 3rd)
January, 2022: Arshia Khan, Humanoid Robots: Augmenting care in nursing homes (Feb 3rd)
2021 Event Leaders
December, 2021: Astro Bob King, A Journey to Antarctic Skies (Jan 6th)
November, 2021: Kris Eilers, Celebrating the St Louis River (Dec 2nd)
October, 2021: Alex Cavallin, From Death to Disposition (Cafe ScientifEEK! Twin Ports)
September, 2021: Space Trivia – Episode 4 – Celebrate the Night Sky Week, Co-hosted with Starry Skies North IDA and Amity Coffee
August, 2021: Lisa DeGuire, Who Pooped in the water? Using Science to Monitor and Protect Recreational Waterways
July, 2021: Tom Hollenhorst, Great Lakes Monitoring – The Next Generation (Robots, Sensors, Satellites, and You!)
June, 2021: Erin Burkett, What Women Who Fish Can Teach Us About Gender and Outdoor Recreation (Link to recording)
May, 2021: Shelby Scott, Handguns and Hotspots: Quantitatively Modeling Gun Crime (Link to recording)
April, 2021: Gerald Ankley, PFAS: A Novel Class of Environmental Contaminants
March, 2021: Brenna Doheny, Climate Change and Health in Minnesota: From (A)ir quality to (Z)ero-emission vehicles (Link to recording)
Feb, 2021: Cafe Scientifique Twin Ports 4th Anniversary: MUG TRIVIA!
January, 2021 (Feb 4th): Emily Gaarder and Ted Lewis from The Center for Restorative Justice and Peacemaking: What is Restorative Justice? (Link to recording)
2020 Event Leaders
December, 2020: Picture a Scientist, Virtual Screening and Panel discussion – Sponsored by and Co-hosted with Northwoods Women in Science
November, 2020: Dustin Haines, River Talks Series – Should I stay or should I go? The Clash of Wetlands with Lake Levels, Invasives and Humans (Link to recording)
October, 2020: Dan Villeneuve, Cafe ScientifiEEK 2 – So many fascinating ways to die: The morbid curiosities of toxicology (Link to recording)
September, 2020: Space Trivia – Episode 3, with Starry Skies Lake Superior (Link to recording)
July, 2020: Dan Crist, Data science: The good, the bad, the ugly (Link to recording)
June, 2020: Sue Leaf, Author Event: Sue Leaf Presents Minnesota’s Geologist
April, 2020: Richard Buckalew, Basics of Epidemic Modeling (Infographic) (Link to recording)
March, 2020: Guido Wallraven, Climate Smart Duluth
February, 2020: 3rd Annual Science Social and Trivia
2019 Event Leaders
Dec, 2019: Karl Wagner, Solar Energy: Past and Present
Nov, 2019: Randy Hanson, Regenerative Agriculture & Restorative Food Systems
Oct, 2019: Cafe ScientifEEK – Science + Music Halloween MASH
Sept, 2019: Karin Kraemer, Color and Clay
August, 2019: Amanda Grusz, Discovering Biodiversity with BIG data
July, 2019: Doug Jensen, Aquatic Invasive Species
June, 2019: Gene Kremer, Funga!
May, 2019: Claire Lande, Bees!
April, 2019: Vicki Kurker, The World Climate Simulation
March, 2019: Julie Etterson, Adaptation in the Anthropocene, the resurrection is near!
February, 2019: 2nd Annual Science Social and Trivia
January, 2019: J. Neil Henderson, Where medicine meets culture
2018 Event Leaders
November, 2018: Samuel Stewart, How a lonely mathematician models really dense crowds
October, 2018: John Dahl, Freaky Biology and Zombies, Naturally
September (Oct 2nd), 2018: Adam Swanson, Sharing Science Through Art
August, 2018: Melissa Maurer-Jones and Tayler Hebner, The Fate of Plastics in the Environment + The Role of Mentorship in Science
July, 2018: Gerald Shepard, Taxonomy: The ‘caddis’ in the coal mine, invasive ID, and the importance of knowing our aquatic neighbors
June, 2018: LSRI Scientists – Heidi Saillard and Kelsey Prihoda, Lake Superior’s Beaches
May, 2018: Richard Buckalew and Eric Erdmann, The Gerry-Mander, Voting Methods, and Mathematics
April, 2018: George Hudak, Minnesota’s Potential Mineral Future and Opportunities
March, 2018: Katie Williams, The Social Side of Science
February, 2018: First Annual – Science Social and Team Trivia
January, 2018: Carol Christenson, Forecasting Winds and Waves of Lake Superior
2017 Event Leaders
December, 2017: Eric Norland, From Ancient Religion to Modern Cosmology
November, 2017: Emily Stone, Exploring Northwoods Nature through Science and Your Senses
October, 2017: Rachel Portinga, How to Lower an Ecological Footprint
September, 2017: Adam M Frankiewicz, The Art of Scientific Illustration (October 5th, combined discussion and art opening)
August, 2017: Matthew Etterson and Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory, The Phenomenon of Bird Migration
July, 2017: John Pastor, The North Woods: Past, Present, and Future
June, 2017: Ryan Hueffmeier, Citizen Science
May, 2017: Beau Webber, The Future of Genomic Engineering
April, 2017: Dale Hoff, Environmental Science and Imperative of Scientific Communication
March, 2017: Heather Wright-Wendel, The Role of Green Infrastructure in Building Resilient Communities
February, 2017 : “Astro” Bob King, The Future of Humans in Space (The Journey Begins)
An archive of biographies for our past discussion leaders is below:


































