Stand-up Comedians + Scientists + You = Stand Up Science

Award-winning stand-up comedian and science podcast host Shane Mauss presents Stand Up Science!

Learn and laugh as local scientists, comedians and other special guests join Shane to bring you a one-of-a-kind show that is equal parts ahas and hahas

Stand-up comedy and science have a lot in common. They both reveal truth, change our perceptions, and challenge the status quo. So why are they so underappreciated? Admittedly, comedy sometimes underestimates the intelligence of their audience, catering to the lowest common denominator. And science has the stigma of being overly complicated, unrelatable or boring. Until now.

Funnier and more provocative than TED Talks, while smarter than traditional stand-up comedy, Stand Up Science combines the best of both worlds. This thought-provoking night of laughs will leave you a little smarter, a little happier and send you home with plenty of fuel for your own conversations.

What to Expect:

As your host, Shane kicks the evening off with some of his best material on brainy topics, before introducing special guest speakers and performers. Guests range from Ivy League professors presenting groundbreaking academic research to local stand-up comedians delivering their most cerebral material.

At the end of the night, Shane brings all the guests back onstage and opens the floor for a Q&A and interactive discussion with the audience.

Stand Up Science will blow your mind and bust your gut, but don’t worry… there is a doctorate in the house.

About the host and origins of Stand-Up Science:

Shane Mauss leads two lives.

In one life, he tours full-time as a stand-up comedian. Shane has brought his unique blend of absurdist humor, thoughtful insights and storytelling to cities all over the world, as well as TV spots on Conan, Kimmel, Comedy Central, Showtime, BBC, Epix and more.

In his other life as the host of the podcast Here We Are, he’s interviewed over 200 of the world’s leading academic experts about our most fascinating traits and behaviors while finding the funny in the innermost workings of life. Each week Shane illuminates a new area of research for the show’s 50,000 loyal listeners, earning a 5-star rating on iTunes.

Shane’s unique background, comedy, and personal philosophies have also made him a popular guest on other top podcasts like Pete Holmes’ You Made It Weird, Marc Maron’s WTF, The Joe Rogan Experience, Duncan Trussell’s Family Hour, Bertcast and more.

Guests

Evan Waite

Evan Waite is a master’s student at Wichita State University where he studies ground beetle interactions with land management practices on restored grasslands. Originally from Allentown Pennsylvania, he received his bachelor’s from the University of Florida in Entomology and Nematology. And in the fall, will be starting a PhD at Arizona State University looking at large scale trends in ground beetle communities across North America.

Lyndzee Rhine

Lyndzee Rhine is a Naturalist at the Great Plains Nature Center in Wichita, Kansas. She graduated from Kansas State University in 2014 with a degree in biology and followed up with a master's degree a few years later. A nature nerd through and through but her real passion lies in fungus, which no one really knows anything about. She's a Kansas Department of Agriculture certified mushroom identification expert, has given countless talks and demonstrations on the subject and is in the midst of publishing her first book, A Pocket Guide to Common Kansas Mushrooms.

Cornell “Nick” Nichols

Originally from St. Louis, MO, Cornell “Nick” Nichols III is a comedian in the Kansas City area. Nick’s style of comedy has allowed him to perform at clubs, colleges, corporate and family events. He started doing comedy during his college career at Missouri University of Science & Technology. He went from performing YouTube sketches, to performing improvisational comedy to ultimately performing standup comedy at the school’s talent show. He graduated from Missouri S&T in May 2015 with a B.S. in Engineering Management and has a TEDx talk, A Shy Kid Ready For Change, that is available to watch on the official TEDx YouTube channel.