The Secret Science Club is a science lecture, arts, and performance series based in Brooklyn—and we are about to celebrate our 5th anniversary!

We host live science events for the public, featuring subjects ranging from Black Holes and Dinosaurs to Human Evolution and the Human Brain. Every month, leading scientists give amazing talks on discoveries in their fields and unleash their research on an inquisitive audience. 

Music and film are mixed in with the science, and 90 percent of our events are FREE or low-cost to the public.

2. What is our purpose?

The Secret Science Club’s mission—our secret mission—is to stimulate people’s curiosity about science and the natural world and to introduce members of the public to scientists who study incredible things. Our goals are:

--to fuel the public understanding of science,

--to celebrate science as a vital part of our culture,

--to build bridges between science, the humanities, and the arts, AND

--to energize audiences and ignite their imaginations

And it’s working! Since 2009 when we officially moved to our awesome new venue, the Bell House, our science-loving events have been jammed with standing-room-only crowds of 300 to 400 people. The Secret Science Club has become part of the New York cultural scene. We’re frequently covered in the media, and SSC events generate buzz and excitement about inquiry, experimentation, and the scientific method.  

3. The Future?

This coming season, we want to continue and enhance the Secret Science Club’s programming. We want to:

--expand our regular public talks featuring cool scientists

--extend our Secret Science Cinema series, pairing mind-blowing science presentations with incredible films

--involve audiences, artists, makers, and doers in citizen science, art/sci challenges, and other creative projects

--make the Secret Science Club accessible to an ever-growing audience

As we near our 5th anniversary, help the Secret Science Club keep going! Help us do even more!

4. Who spoke or performed at the Secret Science Club in past seasons?

Since the Secret Science Club debuted in 2006, guest lecturers have included physicists, neuroscientists, biologists, botanists, mathematicians, chemists, geoscientists, paleontologists, and even Nobel Prize winners. 

We've had astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on the cosmos, paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson on Lucy and human evolution, James Hansen of NASA on climate change, and Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel on memory and the brain. We've had scientists from Columbia, MIT, Yale, the American Museum of Natural History, CUNY, Princeton, Cold Spring Harbor Lab, Stony Brook, Brown, Rockefeller, Rutgers, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Institute for Ecosystem Studies, and NYU.

We've also teamed up with cultural institutions like the New York City Opera, L Magazine, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Imagine Science Film Festival, and the Criterion Collection to bring music, cinema, and science under the same roof. 

5. What are people saying about the Secret Science Club?

“The place was PACKED. At least 300 people, standing room only, and quiet enough to hear a pin drop. The crowd was filled with the kind of people you might expect at like, a Warpaint show... not the type of folk you might expect at a science lecture. Are science lectures the new indie rock show?”—Ultragrrrl on the SSC’s January 2011 astrophysics event at the Bell House

“It’s a very different audience from what I might have at a typical popular talk,” Dr. David Spergel, a Princeton University astrophysicist, told a reporter about his experience speaking at the Secret Science Club on the Big Bang. “It’s much younger and more diverse. It’s a very engaged and informed audience, and there’s a lot of energy in the room.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Dr. Dickson Despommier, a Columbia University microbiologist, told the cheering crowd, when he spoke at the Secret Science Club about vertical farming. “This is remarkable. An absolute surprise.”

 “SecretScienceClub talk on tyrannosaurs @BellHouseNY was packed. Thank you nerdy Brooklyn.”—tweeted by allez----- at the Feb 2011 Secret Science Club paleontology event

6. How Does Kickstarter Work?

Our goal with our Kickstarter campaign is to raise a minimum of $9,975. But here's the "kick:" If our supporters pledge a total of less than that, the Secret Science Club gets zero. That means all of you who pledge will not be charged and will not get any goodies. Sadness! But we know you won’t let that happen.

Just make a pledge for some of the cool stuff we’re offering . . .  and tell all your friends about our Kickstarter Campaign. 

7. Just Bring Your Smart Self!

At the Secret Science Club, we are serious and passionate about bringing science to the masses, and we believe in feeding the public’s desire for an engaged, intellectual life.  If you haven't yet experienced the Secret Science Club, we invite you to come check it out!