The Swampscott Public Library is mixing craft beer with coastal science at an upcoming Sip O’ Science event on Thursday, October 30 from 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Alex Bergan, the owner and brewer of Aquatic Brewery in Falmouth, has teamed up with Sierra Muñoz, the outreach program coordinator at Northeastern University, to connect PhD students with the library for a night of casual science talks and beer tasting. 

“Before the lectures, and in between them, Alex pours tasters of several of his beers,” said Reference Librarian Dave Archer. “It’s really neat and was a big hit the first time around in April.”

This fall’s event will feature two speakers:

• Andrew Wantsall, from the Dennedy-Frank Water Resources Ecohydrology Lab, will explore what water can reveal its origins and what it means for the future of watershed management. Wantsall holds a bachelors of science in geology and geophysics from Purdue University and has conducted research on water resources in the Peruvian Andes. He also has two years of experience in environmental consulting, working as a hydrogeologist at Geosyntec Consultants. His research interests now center around combining computational modeling with field measurements to better understand recharge sources in watersheds and how they will change overtime. 

• Neida Villanueva-Galarza, from the Grabowski Marine Ecology Lab, will discuss how warming ocean waters are reshaping habitats and sparking new interactions between marine species. She holds a bachelors of science in environmental science from Northeastern University and became an MIT Sea Grant and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution fellow last fall. In a paper published in September, Villanueva-Galarza and her co-authors used local ecological knowledge from lobster fishers in Maine and Massachusetts to map emerging food web dynamics across rapidly warming coastal waters. Her current interests include exploring species interactions with a focus on the importance of incorporating social science and local knowledge into ecological research.

Registration for the event is open to those over 21 years of age at https://swampscottlibrary.org/2025/10/autumn-sip-o-science/. Valid ID is required for entry.