Where are you at this time and what are you most likely to be doing? 

Sam Mulrooney introducing the speakers at Crossroads of Ideas

Either WID’s Illuminating Discovery Hub is wrapping up a Crossroads of Ideas program in the Discovery Building Forum or WID’s Illuminating Discovery Hub is just finishing up another SoundWaves program at the Hamel Music Center.

Crossroads of Ideas is a public lecture series held monthly during the academic year that addresses topics that matter to our community and are the subject of research at UW-Madison. SoundWaves combines scientific lectures about the world with live classical music performances. Each event revolves around a theme, exploring it first from many scientific angles and then through the lens of music. The program concludes with a live performance of music related to the evening’s theme.

What would you be shocked to find yourself doing at this time?

I would be shocked if we had an impromptu celebrity guest like Taylor Swift show up to share their support for the specific topic of the night.

What’s your favorite thing about this time of day?

The evening is a great time of night to invite our local community to join us on campus. When we are hosting in the Discovery Building, this time gives our audience a chance to grab dinner at Steenbock’s or elsewhere, and make a night of it!

SoundWaves event in Hamel Music Center

Least favorite?

The building can sometimes get eerily quiet once the restaurants close and students end their study sessions. That’s why we like hosting events though!

How can you tell if your work is going well?

If the seats in the Forum are all full. If the livestream Zoom audience stays for the duration of the event.  If the audience Q&A portion at the end of the event is such that we have to cut the questions off because of time. This means our audience was super engaged with the topic and the presenters did a great job making their research approachable and relatable.

What tells you it’s not going as expected? What do you do when that happens?

A typical ‘mishap’ is related to things like tech issues with the mics or slides. These are mostly easy to troubleshoot with our AV support from the Discovery Events team. Sometimes we have presenters/hosts that become a bit too long-winded for the event in which case, we have signage and signals to gently nudge them to wrap it up. Audience members and presenters are generally very respectful and understanding of any delays or unexpected situations. Even when presenters get audience questions that are weirdly personal or completely off topic, they have been wonderful about answering appropriately.