Sydney Smith

Title: Using Data and Neuroscience to Understand the Most Effective Depression Treatment

I’m a Colorado-transplant and computational neuroscience PhD candidate at UC San Diego. Essentially, I am a gigantic nerd who uses math and computer science to learn about the brain. Lucky for me, San Diego is a delightful place to be a nerd and I’ve spent the last 7 years enjoying this beautiful city, roaming the dog beaches with my fluffy BFF, and endlessly searching for the best tacos and breweries in town. Some of these breweries let me host an event every spring called the Taste of Science Festival, which is similar in spirit to Nerd Nite. You can find more of my work on the platform The Conversation, the Stories of Women in Neuroscience podcast and blog, and in the journal Translational Psychiatry.

Bradley Voytek

Title: How to measure a brain

From archaic brain circulation seesaws to Neuralink brain implants, neuroscience has a long and diverse history of creative—and sometimes outlandish—approaches for measuring the human brain and its activity. Although not all approaches worked, even the strangest among them got us to where we are today… In this talk, Prof. Voytek will sample some of the weirder approaches that have been developed for studying the human brain, discussing his research with mini-brains grown in human dishes to working with people implanted with permanent brain stimulators.

Nicholas Peters

Title: Pokémeh: Design Oddities in the Pokémon World

Pokémon continues to be the very best in terms of the world’s top performing media franchises, but for every proverbial Hyper Beam the brand unleashes on popular culture, there have been several storied not-so-super effective moves. With particular mind to art, narrative, and game design, we’ll catch some of Pokémon’s most hilarious, fascinating, and head-scratching controversies; including dashed evolutionary dreams, monsters that can’t sit, game breaking miscalculations, and a quest so inaccessible, it’s downright shocking.