Incoming CHAOS

September 2025

September takes us deep into the data as we join the Kentucky Association of Mapping Professionals GIS Conference. We’ll be talking maps, microbes, and how geospatial chaos drives real-world health impact.

9.23-25. Kentucky Association of Mapping Professional GIS Conference

Florence, kentucky.

Boots-on-the-ground geospatial, where Kentucky’s finest earth minds unite to dig into geospatial information systems—Chaos Lab calls it science with grit. We’re hitting the KAMP geospatial information systems stage—Where Microbes Meet Maps: A Dynamic Geohealth Tool for Kentucky. Details here.

9.01. Labor Day

Various locations, USA.

At CHAOS Lab, we recognize Labor Day as a tribute to the backbone of it all: the workers. From field techs and research assistants to custodians, drivers, admin staff, and every underpaid, overcaffeinated scientist in between—this day honors the labor, sweat, and resilience that keep science (and society) running. Here’s to the doers, the makers, and the chaos-fueled change agents.

9.08. Society of Postdoctoral Scholars Annual Research and Career Symposium

Lexington, kentucky.

Think of it as a postdoc science talent show—except with way more posters, zero sequins, and actual career prospects. Bring your research, crash some panels, maybe snag some cash, and who knows—figure out what you want to be when your postdoc grows up. I’ll be on stage at 9:15 with Into the Void We Go: Kentucky Caves and the Search for New Drugs. Details here.

9.04. UK Earth and Environmental Sciences Rast-Holbrook Seminar Series

Lexington, kentucky.

I’ll be throwing down a seminar for UK EES all about geohealth—what the hell it even is, why it matters, and where ‘omics’ crash headfirst into rocks and medicine. Come find out how CHAOS is breaking the rules with an unholy alliance of geology and medicine. Want in? 1600 hours (or 4 pm Eastern), University of Kentucky, MMRB 102. I'll even have stickers. Details here.

9.12. Kentucky Water Resources Annual Symposium

Lexington, kentucky.

Headed to the Kentucky Water Resources Annual Symposium—where everyone from scientists to agencies to community crews gathers to talk water in the Commonwealth. I’m rolling in because CHAOS Lab research (microbes, minerals, medicine, and mayhem) crashes perfectly into theirs. Details here.

9.24. Bat-tholemew Day

CHAOS LAb Official Holiday

Every September 24th, we honor the divine descent of Bat-tholemew—our feral, winged omen who crash-landed in an immunology hallway and launched the unhinged journey toward caves, microbes, and the birth of CHAOS. He was the sign we didn’t know we needed: that the future of science was wild, interdisciplinary, and hanging upside-down in the rafters.

October 2025

October is pure, unfiltered CHAOS. We’re kicking things off at the North American Cartographic Information Society meeting to get our map-nerd fix, then heading to GSA Connects for geoscience, deep time, and dirty data. But it’s not all conference halls—this month also brings Halloween, and with it, haunted houses, fog machines, scream-fests, and spooky science vibes. You’ll find us chasing microbes by day and hitting the haunts by night. This is our season.

10.15-18. North American Cartographic Information Systems Meeting

Louisville, Kentucky.

Where mapmakers, data storytellers, and spatial visionaries gather to chart the weird, the wild, and the beautifully complex—Chaos Lab calls it cartographic chaos at its finest. Plot twist: microbes are on the map. Catch us live at the NACIS meeting presenting—The Good, the Bad, and the Bioproductive: Microbial cartography in Kentucky. More info here.

10.19-22. Geological Society of America Connects 2025

San Antonio, Texas.

Where rock fiends, map slingers, and deep-time disciples gather to drop data, trade war stories, and rattle the geosphere—that’s CHAOS Lab’s kind of party. Science, strata, and a whole lotta ground truth. Catch me Monday, Oct 20th at 1:30 in New Advances in Geobiology with Where the Wild Things Heal: Linking Subsurface Geology to Microbial Ecology and Bioactive Potential in Kentucky Caves. More info here.

10.31. Halloween

Various locations.

Let’s be real—CHAOS Lab’s brand is basically a Halloween metal concert year-round. But October? That’s when we truly thrive. Creepy microbes, cursed minerals, unholy data, and field gear that smells like the undead. We'll be summoning science, raising hell, and maybe a few eyebrows. Happy Halloween from the lab where it’s always spooky season—and the petri dishes bite back.

November 2025

November at CHAOS Lab is a mix of science, gratitude, and maybe a little pie-fueled chaos. We’re heading to the Kentucky Academy of Science Annual Meeting to drop data, connect with Kentucky’s best minds, and stir up some interdisciplinary mayhem. Then we’ll pause (briefly) for Thanksgiving—to give thanks for field partners who don’t bail, lab gear that mostly works, and families who pretend to understand what we do.

11.21-22. Kentucky Academy of Sciences Annual Meeting 2025

Louisville, Kentucky.

The Kentucky Academy of Science Annual Meeting is where Kentucky’s science scene goes full throttle—biologists, geologists, chemists, physicists, and all flavors of nerd converge for two days of data drops, poster sessions, and wild cross-discipline collisions. From high school prodigies to seasoned researchers, it’s a celebration of homegrown science, curiosity, and the kind of collaborative chaos we live for. Louisville won’t know what hit it.

11.27. Thanksgiving

United States.

At CHAOS Lab, Thanksgiving is our chance to hit pause (sort of) and give thanks—for loyal field partners, stubborn microbes, functional gear (bless), and the beautiful mess that is research. We’re grateful for the chaos, the curiosity, and the crew that makes it all possible.

Also, let’s be clear: pie is the official dessert of CHAOS Lab. We eat it year-round, but on Thanksgiving? It’s basically sacred. Pumpkin, pecan, apple—we don’t discriminate. Just pass the pie.