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Alan Alda

Actor, Author, Director

Alan Alda, a six-time Emmy Award–winner, played Hawkeye Pierce on the classic television series, M*A*S*H, and appeared in continuing roles on ER, The West Wing, and 30 Rock.  He has 33 Emmy nominations as actor, writer, and director, and is a Television Hall of Fame inductee.  He has starred in, as well as written and directed, many films, and was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the Aviator.  He has appeared often on the Broadway stage, where he received three Tony nominations.

His long-time interest in science and in promoting a greater public understanding of science led to his hosting the award-winning PBS series Scientific American Frontiers for eleven years, on which he interviewed hundreds of scientists from around the world. In 2010, he hosted a science series on PBS called The Human Spark. On Broadway, he appeared as the physicist Richard Feynman in the play QED. In 2002, he had the honor of giving the commencement talk at Caltech, where Feynman himself had delivered the commencement address 28 years earlier. In 2006, for his efforts in helping to broaden the public’s understanding of science, he was presented with the National Science Board’s Public Service Award.  He is a Visiting Professor at Stony Brook University’s Center for Communicating Science, where he is helping develop innovative programs that enable scientists to communicate more effectively with the public.

Past Events

  • Science & Story: The Art of Communicating Science Across All Media

    Bringing the drama of science to life for a broad audience is a vital cultural challenge. In a series of vibrant programs, hear how some of the foremost interpreters of science are using their narrative crafts to shift science to its rightful place at the cultural center.

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  • The 2011 World Science Festival Opening Night Gala

    This major new work explores the deeply moving story of one of the most accomplished and revered scientists in history. Celebrating the opening night of the 2011 World Science Festival, the play soars with flights of intellectual adventure grounded in the tumultuous and all too human story of a brilliant woman’s determination to experience the passion she has both for knowledge and for love.

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  • Consciousness: Explored and Explained

    Neuroscientist Giulio Tononi, one of the world’s leading sleep researchers, casts new light on the science of the mind, probing where and how consciousness is generated in the brain.

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  • Black Holes and Holographic Worlds

    Alan Alda joins Kip Thorne, Robbert Dijkgraaf and other renowned researchers on an odyssey through one of nature’s most spectacular creations.

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  • Opening Night Gala Performance

    Renowned physicist Stephen W. Hawking will be honored in a star-studded salute to science.

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  • Flash of Genius Stories of Invention

    Alan Alda explores the nature of creative breakthroughs with innovators Dean Kamen, holder of more than 440 U.S. patents, and Hugh Herr, Director of the MIT Biomechatronics lab.

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  • What It Means to Be Human The Enigma of Altruism

    Alan Alda hosts E.O. Wilson, Sarah Hrdy and other leading evolutionary biologists, anthropologists and humanitarians as they examine the origins and evolution of human cooperative behavior.

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  • Dear Albert: A Reading for the Stage by Alan Alda

    This new play by Alan Alda delves into the treasure trove of letters written by Albert Einstein, his wives and his friends, tracing an intimate and unfamiliar line across his life and work.

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  • QED: A Reading

    Emmy award-winning actor Alan Alda revisited his acclaimed performance as the Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman in Peter Parnell’s play QED.

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  • Invisible Reality The Wonderful Weirdness of the Quantum World

    Our audience joined Alan Alda as he accompanied Brian Greene, Nobel Laureate William Phillips and other leading thinkers at the vanguard of quantum research on an accessible multimedia exploration of the astounding weirdness of the quantum world.

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