Nerd Nite St. Pete-June 2026

*Nerd Nite St. Pete will be at Coastal Creative in June*

Food Trucks open at 6pm:

Hangry Hungarian: https://www.hangryhungarian.com/

Carupano Kitchen: https://www.carupanokitchen.com/

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 cocktails, eat from local vendors, 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 6pm. 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:

Lauren Purdin

The Fascial Matrix: How your Toe is Connected to your Head

Your body isn’t just a collection of muscles and bones—it’s wrapped, woven, and held together by an incredible connective tissue called fascia. Once dismissed as biological packing material, fascia is now understood to play a major role in movement, stability, pain, and injury prevention. In this talk, you’ll learn how fascia connects your entire body, why tension shows up far from the original problem, and why you can’t seem to get rid of that shoulder ache. You’ll never think about your body—or stretching—the same way again. Content warning: includes images of human dissection.

Lauren has been a massage therapist for 16 years and a proud body nerd for even longer. Ever since their first introduction to fascia during a massage school tour 17 years ago, they’ve been fascinated by how bodies are held together, how they break down, and how they can be helped back into balance. They now own and operate The Metta Center of St. Petersburg, where they practice bodywork, and they also offer bodywork at an acupuncture clinic in Seminole Heights. Lauren is also an avid Sci-fi nerd who loves to travel the world.

Emily Oster

The Greatest Invention Ever for (Limiting) Humankind.

Humans quickly realized that sex could lead to pregnancy. Not long after this early "aha!" moment, humans realized they needed a way to prevent it. From weasel testicles, fish bladder condoms, to "The Pill" that changed it all, this talk will explore the history of birth control, the invention of a “magic pill”, and the future innovations for contraception.

Emily Oster has worked in public health for over fifteen years in various fields including sexual and reproductive health care, infectious diseases, and the Covid-19 pandemic. She has lived and worked in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, St. Petersburg, Florida, Guatemala and most recently, Rochester, NY. A former co-boss in St Pete, Emily’s greatest life achievement is starting up Nerd Nite in her new home in Rochester.

Jameka Williams

Rent Is Too Damn High: A Nerdy Guide to Fixing It

Housing isn’t broken because we lack ideas—it’s broken because we keep building the wrong stuff. When we only build luxury or deeply subsidized housing, nothing scales, but mixed-income, city-led housing actually works (yes, like roommates, but for a whole building). So if we want a livable city, the answer is pretty simple: build more homes, in more ways, and stop overthinking it -other cities are doing it and St. Pete can do it too!

Jameka Williams is a marketer, community advocate, performance artist and City Council District 6 Candidate. She is focused on making complex issues—like housing—clear, human, and actionable. She has worked on housing justice storytelling and organizing efforts in St. Petersburg, amplifying the voices of residents navigating rising costs and displacement. Whether on stage or in the field, she brings a people-first approach to policy, blending strategy, storytelling, and a little bit of humor to drive change.