**Special Nerd Nite at the Palladium. Where nerds go epic.

Learning hits different with a drink in your hand and smart people around you. Nerd Nite is a worldwide phenomenon, popping up in over a hundred cities, including right here in St. Pete.

Each month, three passionate presenters take the stage for fascinating and fun 20-minute talks on things they truly geek out about. You will get to sip wine, mingle, laugh, and follow curiosity wherever it wanders.

Think of it as a lecture series that ditched the podium and grabbed a beer instead.

Drink. Learn. Connect. Come for the fun facts, stay for the conversations, and leave knowing something you didn’t when you walked in.

Doors open at 6:00pm. Presentations begin promptly at 7pm.

Tickets are $6.91. All tickets will be sold online.
No need to print tickets: Give us your name and we will check you in.

Check out this month's speakers:

William Richkus

The Miraculous Sex Life of Eels

Eels living in fresh and brackish waters throughout North America all leave the continent to gather in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in the fall to spawn and die. Their eggs float northward in the Gulf Stream as they transform into larval eels that somehow know to swim west to North American rivers and estuaries. After 10-20 years living and growing inland, they swim back out into the Atlantic spawning grounds. Think about how the DNA in an eel egg includes the instructions to direct the larval eels to go west into freshwater and to lead the adult eels to find each other in one location in the vast ocean😳. Definitely miraculous!!

William Rickus is a retired fisheries biologist with a PhD in Oceanography from the University of Rhode Island. He taught at universities for a couple years before getting into environmental consulting. In his nearly 40 years of consulting on local, state and federal contracts, many dealt with impacts of hydroelectric projects on eel populations, so he became very knowledgeable about the life cycle of eels.

Luis Seixas

Art and Science in collision. An introduction to Art Conservation

There are still misconceptions about art conservation. Are you an artist? People often ask. Sort of. Or, do you really use saliva to clean fine art? And that’s a solid, yes, I do. What attracted me to art conservation was the problem-solving, specifically of complex materials like ancient bronzes. There’s also the obvious head crash between arts and science – chemistry and physics in particular. It is exactly in the right balance of knowledge and proficiency in these opposite fields, that the solutions for the incessant work for preservation of the world’s cultural heritage rely upon.

Luis Seixas is an art conservator (and electronic musician), specialized in objects and sculpture. Luis attended the first degree in conservation created in Portugal, in the early 1990’s. He was appointed to work in numerous museums, monasteries, palaces and others under the ministry of culture wing, including UNESCO World Heritage sites. Loved particularly the ones in the country side – better food, better wine. Luis moved from one of the oldest places of the Old Continent to the South in 2010, where he served museums and private collections (i.e. rich folks). Living in St. Petersburg since 2020, Luis works regularly for Museum of Fine Arts, the James, the Dali, the Tampa Museum of Art and, of course, for even richer folks. Occasionally he lectures in broken english at the University of Tampa, Eckerd College and at the Ringling College of Art and Design.

Karli Kucko

Becoming a Vulvagenius: Unlocking the Secrets to Women’s Pleasure

Women are 3x more likely to "O" in relationships with other women than with men, and most women in relationships with men say they have faked it. Despite men's best efforts and intentions, many are not equipped with the knowledge they need to really knock her socks off. In this spicy talk, we’ll bust some common myths about female pleasure, explore what men get wrong, and give you one simple but powerful framework to immediately level up your confidence and connection in bed. If you’ve ever felt unsure, stuck, or like your partner’s body is a mystery, this is your chance to change that. Come get a taste—pun intended.

Karli Kucko is a Licensed Professional Counselor and AASECT Certified Sex Therapist with a passion for helping people have more connected, pleasurable, sex. As a single woman in her 30s, she's had plenty of personal and professional experience with men who genuinely want to be amazing lovers—but don’t have the right tools (yet). She's your pleasure translator, myth-buster, and guide to understanding what makes women tick--helping men everywhere rise triumphantly to the "O"ccasion.

Contact the host of Nerd Nite St. Pete-February 2026 (SUPERSIZED)