Nerd Nite Edmonton

Amanda Green is a local STEM Educator and Canadian Space Ambassador excited to share her passion for Canadian space exploration and “moon joy!’. She will take you through some of our greatest achievements and ambitions and then share how she teaches kids to love space, think critically and reach for the stars!
 Bio: Amanda is a passionate educator who teaches Jr High STEM classes in both English and French in Beaumont. She isn’t just a STEM educator, she’s a spark igniting a passion for discovery. Through the power of project-based learning, she plunges her students into hands-on STEM adventures, seamlessly weaving in technology to make science not just a subject, but a living, breathing experience.
  

Instagram: @MmeAmandaGreen
TikTok: @MmeAmandaGreen
Threads: @MmeAmandaGreen

1893: The Shining City By The Sea: built by a cadre of Chicago architects 401 years after Columbus’ arrival on Turtle Island. The United States Of America first World Fair was rushed, desperate, and phenomenal. Knowledge of The Columbian Exposition is essential to understanding the mythology of America.
 
Bio: “Unkl Stiv” was and still is a writer, reader, performer and flaneur. He is a theatre nerd, and a hockey nerd. He is currently the executive director of The Edmonton Poetry Festival.
 
Instagram: @stevepirot

LEGO has grown to become one of the world’s largest toy brands, and its fanbase has grown with it. What often starts as childhood creativity leads to using LEGO as a tool for self expression and building community. Adult hobbyists are paving the way for brick-built creations to be seen as a medium of their own.Bio: Sam Malmberg is an Edmonton-based artist that uses LEGO as his primary medium. Sam has displayed his original LEGO creations across Canada and the US, and was a finalist on the TV show LEGO Masters. Through his business, Groovybones Bricks, he works to create interactive experiences, custom models, and a whole lot of brick-based fun.


Instagram: @groovybones
Web: groovybonesbricks.com

Hypnosis is a fascinating phenomenon that is also one of the first psychological topics to be studied using the scientific method. I will talk about different understandings of hypnosis throughout history, how it has been studied, and what it can be used for.

 
Bio: Leif is an amateur hypnotist, a tinkerer, a writer, and generally a universal dilettante. He organizes tabletop RPG games, does various theatre projects, and runs educational outreach for the U of A satellite-building club AlbertaSat. In his spare time, he pursues an undergraduate degree in mathematics, with a minor in psychology.

Help us decide the best mom of the insect world! From carrion meal-preps to days of twerking, the insect world is full of unique and devoted parenting strategies.

 

Bio: Amanda Jorgensen is the provincial entomologist for Alberta Agriculture. Amanda has been a professional bug nerd for the past 13 years, including a master’s degree at the University of Alberta. When not working with bugs, learning about bugs, or making bug art, they are out in the natural world with their two dogs.

Instagram: @Amandalikesbugs

This talk focuses on how the weightless void of space triggers a profound biological transformation, reshaping our bones and heart in ways we are only beginning to understand. By connecting a decade of research on microgravity, it argues that surviving the stars requires us to stop viewing our organs in isolation and start treating the body as an interconnected system.

 
Bio: Dr. Svetlana Komarova is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada. Dr. Komarova’s research focuses on bone physiology, examining how mechanical and biological signals regulate bone cell function and how bone cells, in turn, shape both local and systemic environments. Her work integrates experimental models with computational approaches, including mathematical modeling and data-driven methods, to study the adaptation of skeletal system to complex environments.

Ever wondered how Edmonton started with using streetcars and light rail vehicles as a form of mass transit? Well look no more! In 1908, regular streetcar service began in Edmonton at 7 a.m. on Monday, November 9th, with both Cars 1 and 2 operating between the car barns on Syndicate Avenue (95 Street) and 21st (121) Street. Strathcona service began Friday, December 4th and used the Edmonton Inter-Urban Bridge (now called Low Level Bridge). Streetcar service ended on September 1, 1951 with a ceremonial “Last Run” with invited guests on Streetcar Number 1 from 97 Street and Jasper Avenue to the loop at 109 Street and 84 Avenue where almost 1,000 people gathered to bid farewell in wet rainy weather. Regular streetcar service continued for a few hours thereafter. Then on September 2 at around 1:00 A.M., Car 52 made the final run across the High Level Bridge with five passengers ending almost 43 years of streetcar service. In the time between then (starting in earnest in 1980) and now the Edmonton Radial Railway Society (ERRS) has been acquiring, rebuilding, restoring, and operating fully operational vintage streetcars at both Fort Edmonton Park and the High Level Bridge.

Bio: Rhonda Shand is a proud member of the Edmonton Radial Railway Society (ERRS) and will become more active in operations, maintenance, and project restoration later this year. Rhonda is qualified to operate 50% of the streetcar fleet including the “crown jewel,” Edmonton #1 at Fort Edmonton Park. This is an independent presentation sanctioned by the ERRS where Rhonda will talk about the present streetcar collection plus future plans for the two routes and the fleet. Self described as the “Jedi Enchantress of ALL Things Electron,” Rhonda is an electrical engineering graduate from the University of Alberta and is a Wiccan, moonshining electrical engineer with a ham radio licence and military reserve background. Relevant work experience includes the Edmonton Valley Line South East presently in operation and the Edmonton Valley Line West presently being built, as a Lead Systems and Integration Engineer with Parsons.

This talk explains how Soviet propagandists humanized space technology, such as probes and rovers, during the Space Race. I outline the history of the Soviet Space Program and trace how journalists and graphic artists anthropomorphized machines such as the Lunokhod-1 Rover. My research also argues that this tactic of imbuing life into space technology was not a consistent trend but changed in frequency throughout the course of the Cold War. I analyze articles from Soviet newspapers and examine caricatures by graphic artists within the USSR to demonstrate how such machinery became “human.”

Bio: Mackenzie O’Neill is a Graduate Student in History at the University of Alberta. He focuses on the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine, as well as the Soviet-Era Russian History.

We may be strangers, yet a part of you cares, because any relationship has a level of empathy. Where some individuals in the government might care, Canada, the state, has no capacity for empathy. Generative Artificial Intelligence is a representative of the state and the elite class, yet acts like it has empathy. My talk will focus on state-fueled certainty, uncertainty in rebellion, and how AI exploits empathy and manipulates certainty in order to exert the control of the state.

Bio: Nathan Lamarche is an Otipemisiwak Michif Master of Arts student in English at the University of Alberta whose research interests revolve around empathy and understanding, including Indigenous perspectives and experiences in fiction, subaltern and queer literature, and the disenfranchisement of the working class in post-imperial landscapes. In their spare time, they tend to their several thousand isopod friends, and when not otherwise writing or doing research, you can probably find them buried days deep in the mountains backcountry hiking, cooking very strange meals, and brewing mead out of pinecones.