Orlando

In November 2022, with the help of a few of my fellow grad students at UCF, I set up a new satellite of Astronomy on Tap (AoT) in Orlando, FL, USA! AoT is an international network of local astronomy-related public talks taking place in bars and breweries all over the world! More information about this organization can be found at their website: https://astronomyontap.org/.

The Astronomy on Tap - Orlando events take place on the fourth Thursday of every month from 7:00 – 9:00 PM at Ivanhoe Park Lager House (23 N Orange Blossom Trail, Orlando, FL 32805). Each event is free and open to the public, and features space trivia (with a chance to win some fun astronomy-related prizes!) as well as live presentations given by professional and/or amateur astronomers and/or astronomy grad students! At the conclusion of each event, there are also telescopes set up outside the brewery (weather permitting of course) for the general public to view!

For more information, you can follow AoT Orlando on all social media at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, donate to their CashApp $AoTOrlando, see videos of talks from previous events on their YouTube channel., or contact them via email with any questions or comments!

Graz

Upon starting my postdoc at the IWF, I joined as a co-organizer to assist with setting up another new branch of Astronomy on Tap in Graz! This will be the first ever AoT satellite in Austria, where we plan to bring together people interested in astronomy to listen to nerdy talks over delicious beers! Each event will have two talks in English, both presented by experts in astronomy. There will also be a science-themed quiz and plenty of time in between for chats about space stuff.

Our first event was in January 2026 at the HOPS Craft Beer Pub in Graz. All events are scheduled for the last Tuesday of each month!

Follow us on our socials here to stay up to date! https://linktr.ee/aotgraz

The Orlando Science Center (OSC) is a hands-on science museum that provides experience-based opportunities for learning about science and technology and to promote public understanding of science. The exhibits are mostly aimed towards children, although the museum does cater to all ages. Soon after our creation of AoT Orlando, we became a community partner of OSC. Because of this, while living in Orlando I participated in numerous outreach events at OSC such as Spark STEM Fest, Science Night Live, and Science on Tap! At these events I primarily led physics-based science demonstrations where I taught the audience about topics ranging from spectroscopy, polarimetry, angular momentum, and even some electricity and magnetism! At some of these events we even had telescopes set up for stargazing!

Visit the Orlando Science Center website for more information about their events!

Throughout my PhD program at UCF, I was involved in numerous outreach activities through the department. Some of these events included the UCF STEM Day, which is a free event designed for K-12 students to explore the exciting fields of STEM through demonstrations, activities, speakers, and exhibits; the Knights Under the Stars, public events at the Robinson Observatory on the UCF campus where anyone can come view the wonders of the night sky; and even the Not So Total Solar Eclipse Event, where the public could come and safely watch the partial 2024 solar eclipse while learning all about astronomy through different science demonstrations!