Café Scientifique: “Understanding Addictions: Nature Meets Nurture”

So, as a general rule I don’t blog about work, but rules were made to be broken, right?  I’m running an event through work for the general public and I’m thinking that some of my readers might be interested in attending, so I’m blogging it.

Café Scientifique is a public science initiative that gets scientists together with the general public to talk, in layperson’s terms, about science.   I think the Wikipedia entry on Café Scientifique puts it nicely when they say that Café Scientifique:

“aims to demystify scientific research for the general public and empower non-scientists to more comfortably and accurately assess science and technology issues, particularly those that impact on social policy making”

There are a number of different groups running Café Scientifique events in a number of cities. Our particular series of Café Sci events is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and my particular event in that series is called “Addictions: Nature Meets Nurture.”  We have a panel of four researchers who study different aspects of addictions and each of them will present a brief (like, four minute long) introduction to their area of addictions research – and the rest of the event will involve questions, answers, comments and discussion among the audience and the panel members.  It is meant to be an informal event and one that will generate a lot of discussion about this complex topic.

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Event Details:

Understanding Addictions: Nature Meets Nurture

February 4, 2009
7 – 9 p.m.
Café Du Soleil
1393 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, BC (close to Grandview Park)

Note: the event is at Café Du Soleil, not Café Deux Soleils (which is also on Commercial Drive).  Here’s a map.

Addiction is a complex problem that cannot fully be understood from any single perspective. Join us as we try to find common ground to deepen our understanding of the problems of addiction and strategies to address them .

Food and beverages will be provided.

Panelists:

Erin Gibson Masters student Interdisciplinary Studies, UVic

Hajera Rostam Ph.D. student Counselling Psychology, UBC

Iris Torchalla Postdoctoral Fellow BC Centre of Excellence for  Women’s Health

Kristina Uban Ph.D. student Behavioural Neuroscience, UBC

Moderator:

Dr. Lorraine Greaves
Executive Director
BC Centre of Excellence for Women’s Health (BCCEWH)

This Café Scientifique event is part of the series Sex, Drugs and the Public: Men, Women & Addiction coordinated by the BCCEWH. This Café is offered in partnership with the Integrated Mentor Program in Addictions Research Training (IMPART)

RSVP to:  bccewh@cw.bc.ca

• For more information, please look under “Events” at www.bccewh.bc.ca
• To check out our Facebook event listing, go here.

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If you plan on attending, be sure to RSVP to the email address above and let me know in the comments!

Image Attributions

• B&W Syringe: http://flickr.com/photos/spyndle/535374748/in/photostream Creative Commons License
• “Brain scan” image is reproduced under the terms of a Creative Commons license. Photo by killermonkeys, originally posted on Flickr.com at http://flickr.com/photos/killermonkeys/304439098/
• “Woman drinking wine” is reproduced under the terms of a Creative Commons license. Photo by Squeakymarmot, originally posted on Flickr.com at http://flickr.com/photos/sharman/26541887/
• Lines of cocaine” is reproduced under a royalty-free license from Stock.Xchange. Photo by Jan Roger Johannesen, originally posted at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/489547/
• Images was created from photos used under Creative Commons or royalty-free licenses and with permission of the copyright holders

‘Tis The Season

I’m actually amazed I made it this long before hitting the hard core holiday party season.  I mean, it’s Dec 10th already and I’ve only had one holiday event!  So, for the record, because I know you are all dying to hear about my plans, my holiday parties this year consist of:

• dinner with a bunch of my trainees after our seminar this past Monday
• drinks with a bunch of my friends from school (current and former students in my PhD program) tomorrow night¹
• my friend Erika’s annual 12 Bars of Christmas on Saturday.  This will be my third year attending this illustrious event.  Due to last year’s severe overcrowding, the guest list has been scaled back to only those people who attended the year before. Also new this year: everyone participating has to make a donation to the most appropriate charity: the Canadian Liver Foundation.
• holiday party of my old lab group on Sunday.  Despite the fact that it has been over two years since I worked in that lab and the fact that I didn’t officially work in that lab², I still get invited to the parties. Which is super nice, because they are a lot of fun.
• office lunch at Sandbar on Granville Island on Monday
• lunch with the Dean of one of the Faculties that I teach in on Wednesday
• Blogger Meetup at Ceili’s on Wednesday as well

Man, just looking at that list makes me tired.  Thankfully, I’ll have lots of time to recuperate over Christmas while lying on the beach in Los Cabos for an entire week.  You know you are jealous.

¹Depending on how late that goes, I may also try to swing by the Best of 604 par-tay afterwards
²My lab, which only consisted of three people, just kinda hung around their lab and used their stuff.