Nerd Nite Rochester: April

Name: Nerd Nite Rochester: April
Start: 2026-04-23T18:30:00-04:00
End: 2026-04-23T21:00:00-04:00
Location: Boulder Coffee Cafe and Lounge

Schedule

Thu Apr 23 2026 at 06:30 pm to 09:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Boulder Coffee Cafe and Lounge | Rochester, NY

We all know that learning is more fun when you’re hanging with friends. Nerd Nite operates in 100+ cities around the globe, now including our city - Rochester! Several presenters totally geek out for 20 minutes each. Drink, eat, learn, connect, and talk about fun, interesting stuff with fun, interesting humans.
Presentations begin promptly at 7pm. Get there early to grab a seat, something to eat, and a drink.
@boulder coffee, 100 Alexander St, Rochester
Check out this month's speakers:
Julia Tellerman presents – Health and High Notes: The Role of Musical Theater as a Public Health Messenger
What if the most effective public health messaging wasn’t coming from government campaigns, but from Broadway? This talks covers the surprising ways musicals tackle everything from infectious disease to mental health to social inequity. Using iconic shows as case studies, we’ll explore how the arts shape our understanding of complicated public health issues. You’ll never listen to a show tune the same way again!
Julia Tellerman is a lifelong theater kid with a Master of Public Health from the University at Albany School of Public Health. She serves as a board member of the nature-based learning non-profit Rochester Ecology Partners and as the Secretary of the epidemiology section of the American Public Health Association. If she is not listening to show tunes or podcasts at her desk while working as an epidemiologist at URMC, she is probably either singing in a choir, belting while baking bread, or making up songs about her dog, Cooper.
Karen Lankeshofer presents – Elsa Von Blumen: Rochester’s Forgotten Female Cyclist
In the 1880s, this teen-age girl from Rochester learned to ride a high-wheel bike and ended up racing all over the Eastern US and Canada. Her life reads like a soap opera – an abusive manager, a bad marriage, tiring travel. But she became a superb athlete who championed physical activity as a path to good health and independence for women.
Now a resident of Henrietta, Karen Lankeshofer has lived in Germany and Russia. She rides her bike in countries all over the world and uses her bike for transportation as well as recreation. Karen is an active safe streets advocate, historical researcher, and life long learner.
Aiden Ward presents – Small but Mighty Connections: Noncovalent Interactions in Nature and Why the Hydrogen Bond is Cool
When most people think of chemistry they’ll often think of covalent bonds; two atoms sharing electrons between them. But there’s so much more beyond the covalent frameworks of molecules that govern our everyday experiences, with one very important one being the hydrogen bond. In this talk we’ll explore some of the ways molecules interact with each other and how that informs all that goes on around us.
Aiden was born in Cleveland Ohio before attending the University of Rochester as an undergraduate student. After receiving their Bachelor’s in biochemistry they returned to the University to pursue a PhD in chemistry. They currently work in the Partridge group synthesizing molecules to bind to RNA with high specificity. When not doing research they’ll be watching YouTube videos (usually about chemistry) or watching trash reality TV with their fiancée Natasha and their cat Oreo.