Joe Toscano is going above and beyond the call of duty as a postdoctoral fellow at the Beckman Institute. His primary job as a postdoc is to conduct leading-edge research for three years at one of the top interdisciplinary research facilities worldwide. But Toscano decided to bring a little bit more to the University of Illinois campus.

While completing his graduate studies at the University of Iowa, Toscano attended a Science Café in Iowa City, an informal gathering that brings scientists out of their labs to public areas to talk about their work and answer questions. Science cafés are a grassroots movement in the United States that have drawn inspiration from Café Scientifique, a network based in the United Kingdom.