Grab tickets for our holiday themed event on December 11, only $10!
Cypress Hansen
Title: Species that Sleigh: Exploring San Diego’s Natural Holiday Spirit
Who says SoCal has no holiday spirit? Join expert naturalist, Cypress Hansen, on a journey through San Diego’s nature in search of our most festive flora and fauna. From mistletoe and holly berries to Christmas cactus and the animals that depend on them, this talk will showcase the rich biodiversity of our region and highlight the connections between nature and “The Holidays”. Go beyond the clichés and see the wild side of the season.
Cypress is a professional science communicator, naturalist, and illustrator. She started her career as a marine biologist, but quickly pivoted to science communication when she watched her fellow scientists run and hide from lab visitors (true story). Cypress has worked for a variety of major public-facing science institutions (Monterey Bay Aquarium, The Smithsonian, The Nat in Balboa Park) but now runs her own outdoor guiding business, North Star Naturalist, where she develops and leads unique outdoor excursions around San Diego County. When she’s not outside looking for snakes, mushrooms, or native bees, Cypress writes about physics, paints in watercolor, cares for her native plant garden, and cooks up serious storms in the kitchen.
Lisa Will
Title: The Reason for the Seasons
December marks the Winter Solstice in San Diego and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. Did you ever wonder what causes the seasons? Is the Earth the only planet with seasons? Join us to find out!
Lisa Will earned her BS in Astrophysics from UCLA and her Ph.D. in Physics from Arizona State University. She is a Professor of Astronomy and Physics at San Diego City College. She is also the Resident Astronomer at the Fleet Science Center and co-host of the Facts & The Furious podcast. She has researched the nature of dust grains in space and innovations in astronomy education. She is obsessed with Star Wars, the MCU, and Doctor Who and has been a proud geek girl since watching Star Trek and Star Wars as a child. She lives in San Diego with her husband, science fiction and fantasy author Greg van Eekhout, and their two dogs.
Effie Fine
Title: Heat from the Deep: Santa’s Sleigh is on Thin Ice
This holiday season, let’s go on a journey far up north, into the Arctic Ocean. Here, warm waters from the south threaten the delicate balance that sustains the Arctic ice cap. You’ll learn about ocean mixing and ocean heat can affect sea ice, the factors that protect the ice from this heat, and about the specialized instruments we use to study these processes hundreds of meters below the ocean surface.
Effie Fine is a physical oceanographer at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. She got her BS in Physics from Stanford University and an MS degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she realized she could combine her love of physics with studying the ocean through exciting fieldwork around the world. She moved to San Diego and got her PhD at Scripps, focusing on ocean mixing in the Arctic Ocean. When she’s not working Effie enjoys yoga, dog training, and introducing her one-year-old daughter to all the natural wonder San Diego has to offer.