erd Nite Houston presents our October speakers series. Co-Boss Jonathan is giving a presentation on how to use your camera to photograph the night sky, Leigh Mingle will present on how gender socialization makes being a female mathematician difficult and Scott Novich will present on his inter-sensory vest that helps deaf people hear through touch. 

Also, it's the day before Halloween so feel free to wear your costume/cosplay/other. 




Jonathan Martensen:
Night sky photography and making the most of your camera

Weather, lighting, camera, and post-processing are all factors in getting good shots of the night sky. This will be a talk about the basics of setting up for night shots and using digital cameras to photograph the sky without telescopes, making the most out of the hardware you have. Even your consumer point and shoot or DSLR can take photos that may surprise you.

Jonathan is an environmental permitting consultant in the Houston area who likes to take his camera with him on trips and take advantage of night sky photography when conditions happen to be favorable.




Leigh Mingle:
Boys will be boys: How gender socialization creates male mathematicians and brakes female ones

Babies begin to be socialized based on their gender as soon as they are born. Leigh will discuss how this socialization impacts their performance in mathematics during school and after.

Leigh Mingle is a research scientist for a local non-profit. She studies how students learn math. She did her dissertation on gender differences in motivation among high-achieving mathematics students.




Scott Novich:
Stepping up our perceptual game: Increasing sensory perception through non-invasive augmentation.

Scott will detail his research in non-invasive sensory augmentation device design. More specifically: sound-to-touch sensory "substitution" for deaf individuals. (he has a really cool vest that takes auditory signals and translates them into touch perception for deaf patients.)

Scott is finishing up his PhD in the Electrical & Computer Engineering Department at Rice University in Dr. David Eagleman's neuroscience lab at Baylor College of Medicine. Outside of academics, he works for DEF CON (one of the world's largest hacking conferences) - helping to run their "BioHacking Village." and mixes beats as "Great Scott" (on Pandora/Spotify/ etc!)