STEAM Fest on the Square's mission is to inspire San Mateo County's diverse youth to see themselves as scientists, artists, creators and inventors. We will be holding hands on booth with some brain illusions and biology through VR!

Family friendly, bring your kids! 

For more details, check out https://www.steamfestivalrwc.org/

Elizabeth Seckel

Grant Writer, Stanford University

A Model, A Mannequin & A Mirror: Simple Methods to Step Outside Yourself

We often take our sense of self for granted. We do not doubt that our body is our own, or attribute our sensations to other people. Yet there are many neurological conditions and artificially contrived laboratory situations in which this very assumption can be called into question. We’ll demo some of these methods to disrupt our body image, creating out-of-body experiences easy enough to replicate at home.

João Rodrigues

Postdoctoral Researcher, Stanford University

Molecular dating and protein models

Our cells are packed with protein molecules constantly bumping into each other, and the tiniest upset to these molecular 'dates' usually spells trouble. As a computational structural biologist, I use computers to build 3D models of proteins and simulate how they move about in the cell and interact with one another. My predictions help me and others understand the way our cells work or how and why they misbehave.

Iris Oved

Founder and Executive Director, The Paradox Lab

Philosophy of Mind for Robots

Could robots ever really have thoughts? Could they ever make choices for themselves, feel love, understand words, and have conscious sensory experiences? Why or why not? Would it be good or bad if they did? We will play with a simple robot and explore these questions and more as a demo of The Paradox Lab —a non-profit center bringing philosophical inquiry to kids in the SF Bay Area.

Join us for this amazing collaboration between taste of science and Nerd Nite Silicon Valley! Hear directly from the scientists about their fun science at Tabard Theater!!

Meet our speakers!

Anand Rao

Neuroscientist, Stanford University

The Skeleton Key: Unlocking the mysteries of brain disease and injury

If I asked you to define what a skeleton is and why it is important, chances are you'd be able to give me the right answer! But did you know our cells also have a skeleton? Just like our bones, they provide support as cells grow and move. They can also become weak, break, and change over time. But we're discovering a much deeper role for the cytoskeleton (“cell skeleton”). One that can help us treat brain injury, disease, and even develop safer anesthetics that can be personalized!

Matt Gebbie

Postdoctoral researcher, Stanford University

What can growing diamonds teach us about nature?

Have you ever purchased a diamond as an 'investment'? How about growing one in the lab? Our research aims to understand the earliest stages of diamond growth to create new materials for next-generation quantum computers and biomedical devices. Along the way, we discovered insights that can be used to help understand natural processes, ranging from cloud formation to bone growth. 

Dr. Leonardo Tozzi

Postdoctoral researcher, Stanford University

Mapping brain connections to improve treatment of mental illness

Depression and anxiety affect over 400 million people globally and are leading causes of disability. At present, diagnoses of these disorders don’t take into account the biology of the brain and there is no way to predict if a treatment is going to be effective for an individual patient. In my research, I leverage data from the Human Connectome Project, a large effort to map connections between areas of the brain, to improve diagnosis and treatment of depression and anxiety.

Freewheel Brewing Co.'s Monday night trivia is taking a strange and scientific spin as shameless and playful MC Liliana Urbain leads three (loosely) science-based rounds of trivia. We should warn you, she tends to get weird with her categories. Only hint she'll give about what's to come: it's time to put the "Taste" in "Taste of Science".

Cover for the pub trivia: $5
Food and drinks available for purchase.

Family friendly, bring your kid! 

Liliana Urbain

MC

She is a playfully shameless extrovert through and through. Her love of people and performing is clear in her ability to both personally connect with and professionally command groups ranging from 10-20 children at a party to 30-60 adults at trivia to 200-500 drunken adults acting like children at a wedding.  
On top of all else, Liliana sings lead and plays drum for Thrown-Out Bones, a SF-based swanky rock group that constantly pushes the boundaries of what it means to perform.

Say hi to your micro-neighbors!

Have you ever wondered what happens around you in the small micro-world? Put on your explorer's outfit, assemble the microscope we provide and come take a hike with our experts to discover a hidden world (you get to keep your paper microscope!)

Here is how our journey will look:

1:30pm Meet at the Freewheel Brewing Company to build your Foldscope with us!

2:30pm Commute to the Bedwell Bayfront Park

3pm Hike and probe the park

4:30pm  Come back to the Freewheel Brewing Company to share and identify your discoveries of the day.

Meet our Hike leaders

Chris LeBoa

MS student, Stanford

He is a master's student at Stanford in the Epidemiology program. He has worked with the Prakash lab on a project to detect parasitic DNA from river water. He has also helped set up foldscopes in the education center of Etosha National Park, Namibia.

Anton Molina

PhD student, Stanford University

He is working in the lab of Manu Prakash at Stanford University who invented Foldscope. He is interested in biology, materials, and design.

Jamin Hein

PhD student, Stanford University

He is a visiting scholar from the University of Copenhagen. His education is in Molecular Life Science and Molecular Biomedicine. He is now working on the analysis of Protein Protein interactions using spectrally encoded beads. This is important to understand cellular signaling networks, the basis to understand and treat disease.

Learn from the expert the studies going on sleep science and to make interplanetary exploration expedition possible?

Doors open at 7:00pm, talks start at 7:30pm

$5 in advance / $7 at the door

Space the Final Frontier

Karen Krukowski, Ph.D

POSTDOC AT UCSF

Interplanetary exploration will be humankind’s most ambitious expedition and the journey required to do so, is as intimidating as it is intrepid. One major obstacle for successful deep space travel is the possible negative effects of galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) exposure. We investigate the long-term effects GCR can have on behavioral and cognitive performance in a rodent model system.

Does sleep like light?

Virginie Gabel

Postdoc, Stanford University

We all like to sleep, but are we doing it the right way? Are we optimizing it? If you want to learn more about your body rhythm, how the scientist track your sleep and what is influencing your sleep, this is the right place to go! In the talk we will go through the different sleep stages, how the light can impact it and much more!

How do you prevent brain injuries in sports? How do you more effectively get sperm to go to the egg? Come and learn more from the experts in the field!

Join us at our favorite bar to find out more! 

$5 in advance / $7 at the door

Smart sperm: search strategies on the microscale

Shock absorbers for preventing traumatic brain injury

Bacteria and Balloons

Doors open at 7:00pm, talks start at 7:30pm

$5 in advance / $7 at the door

Food and drinks available for purchase.

21+ event. 

Learning from Global Gut Microbiomes

Rebecca Gellman

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Our guts are home to trillions of bacteria, and we're only beginning to understand how they interact with our bodies and each other. I'm studying how our gut microbiome has changed over time by looking at gut bacteria from different populations around the world. Specifically, I'll be talking about the gut microbiota of a hunter gatherer population in Tanzania, and how studying these bacteria can help us understand more about how gut microbes contribute to human health.

Balloons: Can they do the job of satellites?

Dan Bowen

LONG-DURATION STRATOSPHERIC BALLOON CONSULTANT

Long-lived stratospheric balloons - What can they do? What are their limitations? Can you really steer them? Recent advances in solar power, battery density, and satellite communications have recently put balloons back in the running for use in communications, remote sensing, aerial imaging, drone delivery, and materials science research.

Are you curious to know what happens to our human body when one goes to MARS? What can your genome tell you about yourself? Come and learn more from the expert in the field!

Join us at our favorite bar to find out more! 

$5 in advance / $7 at the door

Checklist for Mars: how to get humans there and back again, in one piece?

What does your genome tell you about yourself?

Did you know technological innovation is rapidly changing the challenges and opportunities of public health? Researchers are mapping brain connections to improve diagnosis and treatment of depression and anxiety. Come and learn more from the experts in the field!

Join us at our favorite bar to find out more! 

$5 in advance / $7 at the door

Pathogen genomics and public health

Mapping brain connections to improve treatment of mental illness

How are we going to find E.T? How do you develop good taste and what are the underlying forces that can shape your quality of life?

Doors open at 7:00pm, talks start at 7:30pm

$5 in advance / $7 at the door

Power Your Taste with Super Sonics

Finding E.T.: How to detect extraterrestrial life on planets and moons

Bjorn Harink

How are we going to find E.T? Are we even looking for E.T. and what would E.T. look like? This talk is about what the space science community is looking for and how to see, or better, detect life on other planets and moons in our solar system, using microtechnologies.