It took UC Davis chemistry professor Jared Shaw a crowd of people leaving his event to realize that he had a runaway success on his hands.

“I had my first big speaker, my first big success, and people were leaving my event [because they couldn’t find seats],” he recalled.

So began in 2008 the Davis Science Café, a local iteration of a worldwide phenomenon bringing together scientists, researchers and the general public. When Shaw started, meetings were in a small side-room in de Vere's Irish Pub in Davis, suitable for the eager listeners who consistently showed up. 

But Shaw realized something had to change after he invited UC Davis food science and technology professor Bruce German to speak. German’s upcoming talk for the Davis Science Café would be featured on Capital Public Radio’s Insight with Beth Ruyak. They knew the appearance would drive a bigger audience to the talk, but neither Shaw nor German imagined how many people would actually arrive to listen to a discussion about breastmilk and bacteria.

MARCH DAVIS SCIENCE CAFÉ

• WHO: Maria Marco, professor of food science and technology
• WHAT: “Eat Your Microbes! Fermented Foods, Probiotics and Gut Health”
• WHEN: 5:30–7 p.m. Wednesday, March 11
• WHERE: G Street Wunderbar, 228 G St.
• ADMISSION: Free and open to the public.

“We had a mob scene at de Vere’s,” Shaw said. “Only half the people that showed up could hear Bruce German talking.”

The race was on to find a venue big enough to fit what seemed to be the entire community of Davis. After a stint at City Hall Tavern, Café meetings found a home at G Street Wunderbar, comfortably seating — and feeding — the dedicated crowds of Davis science fans.

At the latest talk Feb. 12, UC Davis chemistry professor Kyle Crabtree discussed astrochemistry — chemical reactions occurring in space — to a packed crowd of college students, children, professors, parents and a few rows of older Davisites.

Though their background is diverse, many in the audience have a similar reason for attending: to learn.

“It seemed really fun,” said chemical engineering third-year student Rob Viano. “Crabtree is one of the best professors I’ve ever had.”

Third-year chemistry student Jasmine Keen, who works in Crabtree’s research group, noted that the Science Café is a “cool opportunity” to learn about complex sciences you’d otherwise need a college degree and a laboratory for.

And that’s part of Shaw’s aim: to share knowledge with the community without journal subscriptions or complex technical jargon.

As for how he finds his speakers, Shaw explained: “Sometimes professors come to me and say ‘Yeah, I’ve given a lot of public lectures.’ And I say, ‘OK, listen — this is a conversation, not a public lecture. You need to be answering and asking questions, and making sure the audience is comfortable interrupting you.’”

For UC Davis alumna Marilyn Houston, it was an interruption that began her regular attendance at the Davis Science Café over the past three years. After hearing a speaker touch on a topic she had researched as part of a lab group in college, she asked if the research they had done was still accurate.

On learning her work still stood, she felt “just like a scientist” and “hasn’t stopped coming back since.”

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