Davis Science Café celebrates 100th event

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Once a month at the G Street Wunderbar in Davis, a crowd drinks to science. That’s thanks to Davis Science Café, a free event series hosted by UC Davis which is open to all. 

Scientists from varied disciplines talk shop with audiences about an array of topics. This year, those have included preventing broken hearts and the history of heart disease in women, the chemistry of salad dressing and most recently, the genetic mechanisms behind how faces are formed.   

That last topic — presented by UC Davis anatomy, physiology and cell biology Associate Professor Dr. Crystal Rogers — marked the Davis Science Café series’ 100th event.

Rogers said the cafés are important because they “communicate what we [scientists] do in a way that other people can understand, as opposed to communicating what we do to other scientists who speak the same jargon, the same coded language.” 

The events have been held for over a decade — UC Davis chemistry professor David Shaw founded the series in 2012. It’s shifted locations from the campus’s arboretum to Crepeville, then to former Irish pub de Vere’s and finally, G Street Wunderbar, where it’s still held today. 

Shaw, who first started the café as part of a project to get exhibits installed in the UC Davis arboretum, said the event was “pretty small, at first.” 

“I had to spend a lot of time advertising and getting people to show up, and it was very difficult to find speakers,” he said. “At our first venue, I even had to haul my own A/V equipment in and out, so it felt like a lot of work that would be tough to maintain.”

Like the intellectual salons of the past, the cafés provide a space for scientists to talk about elements of their work with the community, face-to-face. The subject matter, underneath the broad umbrella of science, is relatively limitless otherwise — each month sees the topic of choice bouncing from discipline to discipline.

Initially, Shaw said, the idea was for scientists to have a conversation with the crowd — just someone with a mic in front of a group. Now, visual aids like slides and models are more common, but he emphasized that the cafés are distinct from the lecture hall experience. 

“It’s sort of the mission to make it an accessible event where a relatively obscure science topic might suddenly have meaning,” he said. “You might learn why it’s important to study particle physics, or chemistry, for that matter … going out into the community and creating a welcoming environment that’s not a classroom is really what makes it work.” 

It’s not an original idea: Science cafés are plentiful around the world, and Sacramento proper has even had its own, called Sac Science Distilled. While no longer active, it provided the Midtown and downtown grid an opportunity to learn about (and drink to) science without having to make the trek to Davis. 

But the idea of hosting science cafés is one that helps aim to create a community around science, especially for those interested in learning outside a classroom setting. 

Rogers, the 100th event presenter, didn’t come from a scientific background, and initially thought that loving science meant a pathway to becoming a medical doctor. But eventually, she found her way to graduate school, teaching and research. Rogers said the cafés and their visibility also highlight that even if someone doesn’t have “the resources, finances or knowledge of the [academic] system, there are people willing to help.”

“Finding that community is crucial, and maintaining that community and connection helps with retention in the field,” she said. “It’s important for me to show out and show that if I can make it here, you can, too.” 

The Davis Science Café series continues every second Wednesday monthly at G Street Wunderbar in Davis from 5:30 to 7 p.m.

Vicki Gonzalez contributed reporting.