Media Coverage

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The “Stars of Stony Brook” Gala honoring Alan Alda was held at New York’s Chelsea Piers on Wednesday, April 24. During the event 750 guests gathered to pay tribute to Award-winning actor-director-writer and educator, Alan Alda. The tribute brought out many notable names including Joy Behar, Carl Bernstein and Noble Prize-winning neuroscientist Dr. Eric Kandel. Continue reading →

Among the procedures Army surgeon Hawkeye Pierce performed on “M.A.S.H.” was an end-to-end anastomosis. Most of the viewers, actor Alan Alda concedes, had no idea he was talking about removing a damaged piece of intestine and reconnecting the healthy pieces. Continue reading →

To the extent that the world improves, it will be science that makes it better. That’s not to say spirituality, morality and religion can’t help, but innovations in those spheres are unlikely, and would cause as much harm as good anyway. Continue reading →

Award-winning actor-director-writer and educator Alan Alda was honored at the Stony Brook Foundation’s annual fundraising gala, “Stars of Stony Brook” on April 24 at New York’s Chelsea Piers. The benefit raised more than $4 million which will help fund the university’s Center for Communicating Science. Continue reading →

Stony Brook University’s Center for Communicating Science — the first of its kind in the United States — was renamed in honor of Alan Alda, the renowned actor, director, and writer who has made an art form of communicating science to the public. University President Dr. Samuel Stanley announced the center’s new name, the “Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science,” at the Stony Brook Foundation’s annual fundraising gala, “The Stars of Stony Brook.” Continue reading →

Stony Brook University is naming its Center for Communicating Science for Alan Alda, the acclaimed actor and science enthusiast who seven years ago pitched the idea of teaching researchers how to relay complex discoveries to the public in simple, understandable ways. Continue reading →

No rest for Alan Alda, who is being honored tomorrow night (4/24) at the Stars of Stony Brook gala at Chelsea Piers in New York. The event will celebrate the actor-director-writer-author-science enthusiast’s greatest academic achievement to date: co-founding Stony Brook’s Center for Communicating Science. Continue reading →

CBS News June 21, 2013 In 1971 he shot a pilot for a TV show based on the movie “MASH.” He figured it would probably last a year. He said the medical jargon he used on “MASH” was hard to … Continue reading →

Alan Alda came to the State University of New York at Stony Brook one summer night in 2006 to help celebrate its annual film festival and to talk about Never Have Your Dog Stuffed, his just-published memoir. The actor managed to accomplish another task that evening: raising the likelihood that scientists will be able to convey their knowledge to the many people who need to understand it. Continue reading →

“Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.” Of course, that’s what Albert Einstein would say — he’s Albert Einstein. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case for the more scientifically challenged. Continue reading →

Ben Ames, winner of a contest to explain a flame in terms that an 11-year-old could understand, was flummoxed when asked what he would say to someone who asked him what a flame was. “Argh,” he said after a pause. “It’s really hard to do this without visuals.” Continue reading →

A graduate student studying quantum physics in Austria has won the Stony Brook University science award for defining what is a flame. Ben Ames, 31, a native of Kansas City, Mo., and a PhD student at the University of Innsbruck, is the first winner of the Flame Challenge, a contest that aims to explain scientific concepts to young audiences and those without science training. His entry was a witty animated video that explains how clashing atoms create fire. Continue reading →

Actor Alan Alda challenged scientists worldwide to answer the question “What is a flame?” earlier this year, and he turned to local students to help him find the answer. Speaking at Brentwood South Middle School yesterday morning, Alda thanked a group of sixth-graders who had helped judge the contest. “They took the judging very seriously,” Alda said in the middle school library. “And they really wanted to learn and to understand.” Continue reading →

Award-winning actor Alan Alda wants scientists to take the jargon out of their communication. Alda, a founding member of the Stony Brook University Center for Communicating Science, and a visiting professor in the journalism school, has challenged scientists to participate in a contest and clearly answer the question “What is a flame?” Continue reading →

Retired Huntington engineer Richard Frauenglass helped put men on the moon. Now he’s trying to make science easier for sixth-graders to understand. One of eight finalists in a global Stony Brook University contest, Frauenglass did his best to answer the question: “What is a flame?” Frauenglass, 72, described it as the light and residue caused by heating something and creating a chemical reaction. Continue reading →

Lately I’ve spent a lot of time trying to help scientists explain in simple words what it is they do. Why in the world, you might wonder, should a nonscientific person worry about a thing like that? There are two pretty good reasons. Continue reading →

What is a flame? At 11, Alan Alda was fascinated by the colorful, translucent undulations of a burning flame. So he asked his teacher, “What is a flame?” “It’s oxidation,” she said. The answer dumbfounded him. A flame is indeed oxidation, a type of chemical reaction that occurs when something burns. But the word did not capture why a flame burns orange or why it produces heat, or anything else that the young Mr. Alda really wanted to know about it. Continue reading →

Actor Alan Alda, who once directed the powers of geniality, wit and intelligence on the intractable rigidity of the Army in his role as physician Hawk¬eye Pierce in the long-running TV comedy M*A*S*H, is now unleashing the same positive energy on another implacable institution: academic science. Continue reading →

This is what happens when you cross doctoral work with improvisational acting: A line of fifteen PhD students face each other in an imaginary tug-of-war. “Make sure you’re all holding the same rope,” says Valeri Lantz-Gefroh, their drama coach and a theater professor at SUNY, Stony Brook. “You don’t want to hold a shoelace when the person in front of you is holding a python.” The line of researchers lurches back and forth across a lecture hall. Continue reading →

The Hollywood actor Alan Alda, who has a deep and passionate interest in science, is part of an innovative US project to help scientists to communicate, as Robert P Crease finds out: A dozen young graduate students stand awkwardly in a line on stage. They look around hesitantly as Alan Alda prepares to lead them in an improvisation exercise. The 73-year-old actor, best known for his appearances in hit TV shows such as M*A*S*H and The West Wing, is trying to see if such exercises, more commonly associated with theatrical training, can help young scientists to improve their public-speaking skills. Continue reading →