Remember those “poems” you’d write in elementary school? The ones where you’d take the letters of your name and write self-descriptive adjectives next to them? Maybe your go-getter teacher even told you they were called Acrostics? Well, here’s one for you:

Nightclub
Event
Radiates
Delight with

New
Information and
Terrific
Entertainment

With a poem like that encouraging attendance, how could you miss our next Nerd Nite on Thursday, November 12 at LIVE at 7pm (doors at 6:30). And if you needed more enticement, it’s your last chance to catch a Nerd Nite in 2026, so you’ve GOTTA come!

We’ll begin with Havi Ellers and Good squiggle or bad squiggle: how do we decide what’s mathematically “nice”? If you take out a pen and draw a squiggly line, have you ever wondered how “nice” your squiggle is? Or what it would even mean for a squiggle to be nice? In a sub-field of algebra called singularity theory, this is exactly what we do! Here we discuss one numerical method for classifying a squiggle: the Hartshorne-Speiser-Lyubeznik number.

Havi is a Postdoctoral Assistant Professor in Mathematics at the University of Michigan. Her research is in commutative algebra, mostly using dots to classify squiggles. In her spare time, she likes to do gymnastics, go for runs, and play with her cats!

Next it’s Opioids: A Double-Edged Sword. Opioids (like morphine and fentanyl) have been critical tools in medicine throughout human history and remain the best treatments we have for severe pain. However, they are also incredibly addictive and deadly, so most people probably think of these drugs in the context of overdose and death. Why can’t we separate the good (pain relief) from the bad (overdose)? Learn more about why from Catherine Demery and her research trying to separate the good from the bad. 

Catherine is a PhD candidate in Pharmacology at the University of Michigan Medical School studying the molecules inside of neurons that drive fentanyl overdose. Outside of the lab, Catherine enjoys spending time with her horse, scuba diving, and cheese.

We’ll end with Nerd Nite alum John Heider with The G.O.A.T Doctor – or The Brief History of Snake Oil Salesmen, Medical Quacks, Frauds, Charlatans, Mountebanks – Their Various Nostrums and Dubious Treatments – Mostly Focusing On, but Not Entirely Limited to, a Detailed Look at a Nation and World-wide Famous Kansas Physician of the 1920s. Learn about some of the mind-bogglingly nutty medical cures offered by physicians over the centuries, focusing on a certain xenotransplantationing quack of the early 20th century who became uniquely well-known and wealthy for his “cure” for infertility.

John is a retired photojournalist, writer and video producer of 34 years for a variety of Michigan publications. He is a (now) four-time Nerd Nite presenter, has no tattoos, finds long division impossibly demeaning and for some reason owns four different kayaks that clog his garage.