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SCI Café

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List of Past SCI Cafes

SCI Cafe

Click on the topics below for related stories and information.
 Topic
 Date
 Emergency Response: Getting Prepared for the Zombie Apocalypse!
 Oct 19, 2017
 Surprising Things Found in our Food
 Sept 21, 2017
 The State of Our Bay  May 2017
 Austin Middle School: Teen SCI Café  May 18, 2017
 Austin Middle School: Teen SCI Café
 May 12, 2017
 Breathing or Wheezing: The Fight for Air When You Have Severe Asthma
 April 2017
 Austin Middle School: Teen SCI Café  April 26th, 2017
 Austin Middle School: Teen SCI Café  April 12, 2017
 From Air Quality to Zoning: Healthy Community Indicators  Mar 2017
 Can Meditation Have Long-Term Health Benefits?  Feb 2017
 Topic
 Date
 Is it Really Just All in My Head? Balancing a Mental Health Condition and Daily Life  Dec
2016
 Understanding Alzheimer’s Disease: The Race is On  Oct
2016
 Big Data (Big Brother) and the Future of Privacy: Benefit or Threat?  Sept 2016
 Burn Injuries  May 2016
 Zika Virus: Facts & Updates  April 2016
 Teen SCI Café; Bench Students Research Review  April 2016
 Teen SCI Café: Scrub Typhus: A Neglected Tropical Disease  April 2016
 Brain Injury: From Concussion to Coma  Mar
2016
 Protecting Muscle Health: Nutrition & Exercise Strategies  Feb
2016
 Topic
 Date
 Brain-Gut Connections: Unruly Bowels from Inflammation and Stress
 Nov 2015
 Consumer Product Chemicals that Impersonate Hormones – Yikes!!
 Oct
2015
 Respiratory Infections: New Ideas for Treatment and Prevention. What Did We Learn from RSV?  Sept 2015
 Teen SCI Café: Bench Students Research Review  May 2015
 Pesticides & Impacts on Human Cognition
 May 2015
 Vaccination in the 21st Century: Victim of its Own Success?
 April 2015
 Teen SCI Café:  Investigating Chikungunya  Mar 2015
 Topic  Date
 Growing a Human Lung: A Transnational Science Journey  Nov
2014
 Chikungunya, Ebola & Ongoing Outbreaks  Oct
2014
 Diabetes & Its Impact  Sept 2014
 Environmental Health in a Disaster: Lessons from the Gulf Coast  July  2014
 Teen SCI Café: Bench Students Research Review  June 2014
 West Nile Virus  May 2014
 BPA: Not Out of the Woods. Meet BPS  April 2014
 Stress Management through Exercise  Mar
2014
 Obesity: Health, Treatment & Discovery  Feb
2014
 Diet & Eating Healthily: How to Shop, Meal Planning, Label Reading & Healthy Snacking  Feb
2014
 Topic
 Date
 Health Research for AA: Beyond Tuskegee
 Nov 2013
 Diabetes
 Oct 2013

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Science and Communities Interact (SCI) Café was established by Dr. Croisant in 2013 to allow community members to meet with UTMB scientists to engage in casual dialogs with respect to translational science.

Have you ever wondered if estrogens in drinking water can lead to things like feminizing male fish? Or have you ever wondered just how a disease like Zika spreads? Topics like these are just some of the many subjects that have been discussed since the introduction of SCI Café. While the discussions are typically scientific, the discussions also consider broader topics like environmental exposures related to flooding and storm surge, aging, and ethical issues.

In an effort to meet the needs of a large number of community groups, there are currently four series of SCI Cafés: one given by experts that occurs at MOD Coffeehouse in Galveston to provide information to the general public; one given by the Galveston Island Community Research Advisory Committee, which assists with increasing knowledge of and participation in research; one Teen SCI Café series, which educates and inspires young scientists; and one for the broader Galveston County community, occasionally held at the Texas City Library.

The program has continuously evolved to better suit the needs of our communities. For instance, one not-for-profit, faith-based group has become so engaged in the process that they are now carrying out SCI Café events independently, although we remain committed to supporting their needs by providing expertise or assistance as requested. 

The two most actively engaged audiences are the general public and teens interested in a career in science. The Community Outreach and Engagement Core (COEC) is expanding the topics discussed at SCI Café to reflect the current and emerging research areas, specifically regarding asthma, bisphenol A and other potential endocrine disrupters and environmental exposures of concern impacting health, interactions between environmental exposures, immunological responses, and health outcomes.

SCI Cafés are supported by the Institute for Translational Sciences and are hosted by COEC staff and scientists involved in research projects at UTMB, resulting in a direct translation of research to the community while providing an opportunity for our scientists and trainees to increase their competency to convey the nature and importance of their work for the public. Most importantly, this enables the COEC to increase environmental health literacy in our community. We recently developed a new SCI Café survey and evaluation tool that captures audience demographic information; a self-evaluation of participants’ learning, understanding, and interest; and what prompted their attendance. This data allows us to determine topics to consider in future SCI Café events.
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