Smarty Pints

Smarty Pints is a celebration of science and beer!

Usually the third Monday of every month, 6:30pm. Clever people tell us about their work. Sometimes scientists, sometimes engineers, sometimes artists!

Are you a clever person who would like to present a 30 minute talk on what you do? Reach out at smartypints@burkegilmanbrewing.com.

Check out previous Smarty Pints topics here.

Upcoming Smarty Pints Topics

October 19

Smarty Pints event poster, for October 19, 6:30pm at Burke-Gilman Brewing. The poster shows a close-up of several large yellow-orange water jugs sitting on a sidewalk or road. A water spigot is on and freely flowing into one of the jugs. There is a text overlay on the poster. The talk title is "Does improving a city water system in Mozambique improve child health?", by Prof. Karen Levy, Professor, UW Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences.Smarty Pints event poster, for October 19, 6:30pm at Burke-Gilman Brewing. The poster shows an oblique aerial view of Amazon’s AWS us-west-2 data center (credited to Tedder on Wikimedia). It is in a dry environment, and there are rows of large, low, beige buildings, parked cars and smaller structures, and a power substation in the background. There is a text overlay on the poster. The talk title is "A Heavy Footprint: Environmental Harms and Ethical Concerns of Generative AI", by Ellen Kuwana, MS, Science Communicator, Founder, and CEO, Kuwana Consulting LLC.

Prof. Karen Levy

Professor, UW Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences

“Does improving a city water system in Mozambique improve child health?”

We know that drinking bad water can make people sick. But can improving water systems in low income countries reduce the burden of waterborne disease? This question is surprisingly difficult to answer. UW Professor Karen Levy will tell the story of how her team set out to answer this question through their work on the PAASIM research study in Mozambique, which examined the impact of city-wide water system improvements on child health.

Ellen Kuwana, MS

Science Communicator, Founder and CEO, Kuwana Consulting LLC

“A Heavy Footprint: Environmental Harms and Ethical Concerns of Generative AI”

This talk will cover many concerns related to generative AI (genAI) such as ChatGPT and Claude, including environmental harms and ethical considerations. The presentation will include information on safer, more ethical genAI and algorithm-based tools as well as strategies to lighten your ecological "footprint" if you use genAI.

November 16

Alyssa Sargent

PhD candidate, UW Biology/Burke Museum

“Mighty and tiny: the territorial world of hummingbirds”

Jim Keany

Wildlife ecologist

“Biodiversity of Madagascar”

December 14

Nora Lee

PhD student, UW Biology/Burke Museum

“Hummingbird coloration and behavior”