Upcoming Events
This is the Washburn CHAOS Lab mission tracker: fieldwork, conferences, outreach, public events, cave trips, scientific briefings, and the occasional descent into the underworld. If the lab is out doing feral science somewhere, chances are it ends up here. Want more information? Reach out at director@washburnchaoslab.com, follow @WashburnCHAOSLab on social media, or send us a message through the form here.
October 2026
10.02. Community: Spalding University Visit
Louisville, KY
Heading to Spalding University to infect some research students with cave science. I’m giving them the rundown on what WCL has been doing underground, then we’re extracting metabolites, that microbial chemical arsenal, from cave sediment so they can take those molecules and go throw science at them.
10.03. Fieldwork: Cave Sample Collection
Lone Star Preserve, KY
Going underground at Lone Star Preserve to snag more samples from the darkness. We keep ending up back here because these caves give us an unreasonable number of conditions to poke at, and Louisville Grotto keeps graciously enabling our cave science.
10.05. Podcast: Foodie Pharmacology
Online
First podcast! I’m talking cave pharmacognosy, citizen science, and general feral science with Dr. Cassandra Quave on Foodie Pharmacology. Listen to the podcast here and hear what happens when you give me a microphone and ask about cave chemistry. There's also a Fiction, Scientifically Speaking handout for listeners AND a chance to get a free Scientifically Speaking sticker pack!
10.07. Community: Louisville Grotto Meeting
Louisville, KY
These are the excellent humans who keep letting us science in their caves. If caves occupy an unreasonable amount of space in your brain and you’re anywhere nearby, come hang out.
10.17. Event: Kings Island Haunt
Mason, OH
It’s October. We’re going haunting. This round: Kings Island Haunt, where we’re attempting to hit every haunt on the property because apparently someone built an entire event directly inside the WCL aesthetic.
10.19. Fieldwork: Hidden River Cave
Various locations
Descending into the underworld at Hidden River Cave. Show cave and wild cave in the same system, so we’re grabbing lampenflora and following the river underground to see what the flooded areas are doing to the sediment along the way. The Hidden River Cave and American Cave Conservation Association crew are some of our absolute favorite humans, and we’re always delighted when they let us come science their cave.
10.21. Event: Kentucky Geological Survey Earth Science Day Open House
Mining and Minerals Resources Building, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY
We’re hauling cave rocks, microscopes, and a ton WCL swag to the KGS Earth Science Day open house. It's a free event that goes from 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm in the University of Kentucky Mining and Mineral Resources Building. Dr. Rachel Washburn and Dr. Alex Washburn will have a table with a whole interactive display called, “Who’s Hiding in Kentucky Caves?”, because apparently crawling underground and bringing home dirt has escalated into a whole public event.
10.24. Event: Scarefest
Lexington, KY
SCAREFEST! WE’RE GOING. We’ll be lurking around with WCL stickers and some CHAOS Lab swag, so if you see the Halloween lab shirt, come say hi and you’ll probably leave with a sticker. We’ll be doing all the horror things, acquiring merch we definitely need, hitting panels, and hopefully spotting Corey Taylor, Alicia Taylor, Spencer Charnas, Sam Raimi, and whoever else we stumble across.
We also have tickets to the Saturday VIP party where Corey MF Taylor is performing with Cherry Bombs, and we are extremely normal about this. Science is metal, we have microbes that are eventually going to need names, and Scarefest seems like a perfectly reasonable place for those two facts to become somebody’s problem.
10.31. Holiday: Halloween
Various Locations
Halloween is basically the WCL natural state, and we go entirely too hard. Happy Halloween! How hard did you go this year?
November 2026
11.06-11.07. Conference: Kentucky Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting
Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky
The Kentucky Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting is basically what happens when all the sciences agree to play nicely together for a few days. Researchers and students from across Kentucky show up to share what they’ve been working on, find new collaborators, and see what everybody else has been sciencing. Whether Washburn CHAOS Lab makes it there this year or not, KAS is exactly the kind of interdisciplinary scientific community we’re into.
11.11. Community: Louisville Grotto Meeting
Louisville, KY
These are the excellent humans who keep letting us science in their caves. If caves occupy an unreasonable amount of space in your brain and you’re anywhere nearby, come hang out.
11.14. Podcast: The High Ground Podcast
online event
I’ll be joining The High Ground, a podcast where fantasy meets reality and pop culture gets dragged into conversations about the real world. Which means this seems like an exceptionally appropriate place for Washburn CHAOS Lab to show up and start sciencing fictional universes with real biology, geology, chemistry, and whatever else the question demands.
11.16. Community: Sierra Club Bluegrass Group
Lexington, KY
Dr. Rachel Washburn is headed to the Sierra Club Bluegrass Group to talk GeoHealth, where geology and human health get scientifically entangled. For us, that means taking geology straight into biomedicine and sciencing what rocks, minerals, geochemistry, microbes, and contaminants can mean for human biology and health..
December 2026
12.09. Community: Louisville Grotto Meeting
Louisville, KY
These are the excellent humans who keep letting us science in their caves. If caves occupy an unreasonable amount of space in your brain and you’re anywhere nearby, come hang out.
Connect with Us
at an Event
The Washburn CHAOS Lab Calendar includes a mix of lab activities, public events, conferences, conventions, partner organizations, and other opportunities we think our community may find interesting. Not every event is organized or operated by the lab.
This form is intended for event-related questions and information requests. Submitting it lets us know you're interested in an event and would like additional information. It does not register you for an event, reserve a spot, guarantee participation, schedule a meetup, or create an operational commitment on either side.
Looking for something more involved? If you're interested in inviting the lab to speak, participate in a panel, or visit, check out the Invite a Scientist page here. If you are interested in organizing a Citizen Science Experience, click here. If you are interested in participating in the Expedition Partner Program or discussing a formal partnership, click here.
director@washburnchaoslab.com
Washburn CHAOS Lab
Science is metal. Science is feral. Science is CHAOS.
director@washburnchaoslab.com
#washburnchaoslab
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complex host-abiotic systems
@washburnchaoslab
Feral scientists exploring hostile systems, unstable environments, and the chemistry shaping what survives there.
#feralscience