UT Austin Postdocs Serve Up Astronomy and a Pint

By Suzanne Geiger

Walk into the North Door, a pub that sits in downtown Austin just east of Interstate 35, and the slogan “Science is Even Better With Beer” comes to life the third Tuesday of every month. That’s when interested Austinites gather over astronomy and a pint to participate in the growing phenomenon known as Astronomy On Tap.

Following in the vein of other special-interest meetups, Astronomy On Tap draws on the public’s growing taste for combining education and entertainment into a single event. The November meetup marks the first anniversary of the Austin chapter (AoTATX), which was started by Drs. Rachael Livermore and Jeffrey Silverman, postdoctoral fellows at McDonald Observatory.

Seated in a small sixteenth-floor office in the UT Astronomy building, Jeffrey said that he first heard about Astronomy On Tap while at an American Astronomical Society Meeting, a go-to convocation for professional astronomers. There, in a convention hall full of academic science posters, one in particular caught his eye.

Drs. Jeffrey Silverman and Rachael Livermore (left to right), atop Robert Lee Moore Hall on the UT Austin campus (Photos by: Suzanne Geiger) “It had a beer glass on it,” Jeffrey said, and it publicized the New York-based Astronomy On Tap. After talking about AoT with astronomer Emily Rice, one of the group’s founders and the owner of said poster, Jeffrey returned home with the impulse to start an Austin chapter. He felt that it fit with the city’s aesthetic, but he spent months batting around the idea, telling several colleagues about it in an attempt to garner interest.

Finally, about six months later, he said, “It was Rachael who said, ‘Let’s do this.’ ”

While the first Austin gathering was held at a smaller venue and drew 140 people (a number that far surpassed Jeffrey’s and Rachael’s initial expectations), attendance at recent events has drawn as many as 285, resulting in standing-room-only crowds. Though topics and speakers vary from month to month, astronomy — as the name implies — is always on tap. Answering the question of whether they’ll ever run out of subject matter, Rachael quipped, “As it turns out, we’ve got the entire universe to talk about.”

While AoTATX guest speakers have covered topics like dark energy, solar system formation, and life behind the scenes at McDonald Observatory (a talk presented by Dr. Taft Armandroff), so too have the topics ventured off a bit, including subjects such as “How Space Rocks Killed the Dinosaurs” and “Hydrogen Burning,” which Dr. Kate Biberdorf of the UT Chemistry Department gave, intersecting her work as a chemist with that of astronomy.

While Kate spends a good portion of her time as an outreach coordinator in which she (literally) blows stuff up at events for K-12 and public audiences, she said that she has never quite encountered anything like Astronomy On Tap.

“After my talk, the crowd would be standing there asking me questions and drinking,” she said. “Everyone presenting was clearly passionate about their subject. . . . For me it was beautiful both as presenter and as a student.”

And contrary to what one might think, Astronomy On Tap isn’t just for astronomers or those studying astronomy. The event brings out a diverse crowd that transcends any particular age range or profession.

Pete Szilagyi, a former journalist who is affiliated with McDonald Observatory through the Board of Visitors, said he came across AoTATX from friends who had mentioned it. “It was just out there in the community,” he said.

As a frequent attender, Szilagyi said, “A lot of astronomy is so unapproachable and unfathomable to the average person, so it’s nice to see it brought out in a light-hearted and entertaining manner, but still having substance.”

Because Jeffrey and Rachael pay for all of Astronomy On Tap out of their own pockets, fronting the costs of merchandise, sound equipment, and the like, Szilagyi said, “I have often thought — especially when they make an appeal for donations — that there’s just something so honest about it, and so earthy.” It’s that, plus its quirk — because “it’s off the beaten path,” he said — that draws Szilagyi and hundreds of others to the event.

“We wanted to bring this to people who wouldn’t normally go to a public lecture,” Rachael said.

As Austin’s gathering continues to spread by word-of-mouth and other means, the event as a whole is also growing. While it started out in New York, it’s also in U.S. cities like New Haven, Seattle, and Tucson, and Santiago, Chile has a gathering, too.

Speaking about the event’s ability to draw all types (including scientists and non-scientists alike), Jeffrey said, “A lot of [the people who come] are in law and politics. People have brought their teenage kids, too.”

And what started out as an idea that might or might not work in Austin has become something of a smash hit. “Yeah,” Jeffrey said, “We’ve got a bit of a following.”

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To learn more about AoTATX or to attend their November event — which will feature talks about relativity, in honor of the 100th anniversary of Einstein’s publication — visit them online or at their Facebook page.