Cafe Scientifique Twin Ports is dedicated to creating a more curious, informed, and collaborative society by hosting free, monthly, public discussions in science, technology, and more

Cafe Scientists

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

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 KurkerThe World Climate Simulation

March, 2019: Julie EttersonAdaptation in the Anthropocene, the resurrection is near!

February, 2019: 2nd Annual Science Social and Trivia

January, 2019: J. Neil HendersonWhere medicine meets culture

2018 Event Leaders

November, 2018: Samuel StewartHow a lonely mathematician models really dense crowds

October, 2018: John Dahl, Freaky Biology and Zombies, Naturally

September (Oct 2nd), 2018: Adam SwansonSharing Science Through Art

August, 2018: Melissa Maurer-Jones and Tayler HebnerThe Fate of Plastics in the Environment + The Role of Mentorship in Science

July, 2018: Gerald ShepardTaxonomy: The ‘caddis’ in the coal mine, invasive ID, and the importance of knowing our aquatic neighbors 

June, 2018: LSRI Scientists – Heidi Saillard and Kelsey PrihodaLake Superior’s Beaches

May, 2018: Richard Buckalew and Eric ErdmannThe 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 StoneExploring Northwoods Nature through Science and Your Senses

October, 2017: Rachel PortingaHow 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 ObservatoryThe Phenomenon of Bird Migration  

July, 2017: John PastorThe North Woods: Past, Present, and Future

June, 2017: Ryan HueffmeierCitizen Science

May, 2017: Beau Webber, The Future of Genomic Engineering

April, 2017: Dale HoffEnvironmental Science and Imperative of Scientific Communication

March, 2017: Heather Wright-WendelThe Role of Green Infrastructure in Building Resilient Communities

February, 2017 : “Astro” Bob KingThe Future of Humans in Space (The Journey Begins)

An archive of biographies for our past discussion leaders is below: