Nerd Nite v54: Salmon, Work Effects on Health, and Songs About Science

About this event

• Event lasts 2 hours 30 minutes

Welcome to Nerd Nite v54! What do salmon, work effects on health, and songs about science have in common? We wanted to learn about them so they’re next up for the first of two Fall Nerd Nites coming your way! Tickets as always go fast, so get in here!

Every Nerd Nite now, we pick a local non-profit organization that your ticket contributes to. This month we're giving to Zee Zee Theatre whose mission is devoted to telling and celebrating stories that amplify voices from the margins, with a focus on 2SLGBTQI+ communities. They share diverse experiences as an act of resistance, while nurturing joy, curiosity, empathy, and humanity in the world.

Check out their productions here.

Nerd Nite Talks

Auston Chhor - Salmon

The Creekwalkers. They may sound like a breed of moss-covered swamp monsters who are seeking revenge against a mining company for draining their wetland, but they're actually a ragtag team of bug-bitten biologists who've survived for weeks on a tiny island with nothing more than muffins, canned soup, and baloney sandwiches. Their mission? To use the latest technology (their eyeballs) to count the salmon run in 15 creeks in Haíɫzaqv Territory. Join me as I recount the soggy month I spent as a creekwalker, explain why creekwalking is important, and share my tips on how to eat lunch when you're surrounded by piles of dead rotting fish.

Bio: Auston Chhor (he/him) is a salmon habitat biologist at Raincoast Conservation Foundation. He holds a BSc. from Queen's University where he studied what happens to fish habitat when cottagers develop shorelines, and somehow received an MSc. for studying what happens to fish when those same cottagers catch them for fun. He moved out west with a dream of becoming a "typical BC boy" and spends his free time trying his best to do so. Talk Description:

Alice Murage - Work Effects on Health

As part of her PhD, Alice did some digging on what others have written about the connections between work and health. She found a lot of research and policies that address classic occupational safety such as exposure to hazardous materials and physical injuries in the workplace. She also found growing literature on connections between precarious or insecure work and psychological wellbeing that in turn contribute to physical illness.
Many workers experience a fight or flight biological responses to stressful work conditions. In our evolution, this response was critical for our survival. Now, work can biologically and psychologically be experienced as a lion we need to fight or flee from. This creates a cascade of hormone production that negatively affects our health.
In her talk, Alice will share the psychological, biological, life course, materialist, and structural explanations of how our work might be affecting our health.

Bio:
Alice Mũrage is a research fellow and PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University, Faculty of Health Sciences. She uses research as a tool to promote social and health equity. Her PhD research aims at understanding experiences of Black healthcare workers who work under conditions of limited job security, control, protections, compensation and/or support in British Columbia, and how their work conditions affect their health. Under the background of the current healthcare workforce crisis, Alice hopes to inform equitable workplace and provincial response policies.

Martin Austwick - Songs About Science

Martin will bring his songs about science to Nerd Nite, in his capacity as the Lower Mainland’s most English science music songwriter.

Bio: Martin Austwick (he/him) is a singer-songwriter, musician and podcaster (The Allusionist). Prior to running away to join the circus, he got a doctorate in Physics and Materials from Oxford University, and worked in Medical Physics, and later Urban Data Visualization. In 2023 he moved to the city voted 2nd most important boba city in the world (2015) and hasn’t looked back.