Public Understanding of Science and Technology

The goal of this program is to enhance people's lives by providing a better understanding of the increasingly scientific and technological environment in which we live.   The program also aims to convey some of the challenges and rewards of the scientific and technological enterprise and of the lives of the men and women who undertake it.  The Program supports the use of books, radio, public television, commercial television, films, theater, and the Internet to reach a wide non-specialist audience.

Books

In 2004, the Foundation launched a new book series, in partnership with Doubleday publishers, to celebrate the lives of the great inventors/entrepreneurs. Eight biographies of people whose innovations shaped the world we live in will appear beginning in late 2006. The series editor, to whom all inquiries should be addressed, is Gerald Howard of Doubleday.

In Fall 2004, Little Brown published Harold Evans comprehensive profile of two centuries of American innovation, They Made America: From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine, which was supported by a grant from the Foundation.

The Sloan Technology Book Series, now fully commissioned, makes available to the general public readable and accurate accounts of the major twentieth century technologies. Sixteen books have been published to date. Most of the earlier books in the series are available in paperback editions. For a full list, see public_books.shtml.

Inventing America: A History of the United States was published in 2002 by W. W. Norton & Co. This landmark textbook, initiated by the Foundation and coauthored by Professors Pauline Maier, Merritt Roe Smith, Alexander Keyssar and Daniel J. Kevles, provides the most multifaceted view of American history to date, integrating science and technology, as well as business, into the central narrative of the nation's history. Over 150 colleges and universities have adopted this textbook and a second edition is in preparation.

The Foundation supports selected books designed to inform people about the scientific basis of issues that are often confusing or controversial. In 2004, Harper Collins published His Brother's Keeper: Tales from the Edge of Medicine, Jonathan Wiener's celebrated narrative about two brothers and the efforts of regenerative medicine to cure ALS. Also in 2004, Knopf published James Shreeve's The Genome War: How Craig Venter Tried to Capture the Code of Life and Save the World, an inside account of the Human Genome Project and one of its key figures. In 2004 Oxford University Press published A Clone of Your Own?: The Science and Ethics of Cloning by Arlene Judith Klotzko. Upcoming books supported by the Foundation include Jared Diamond's Collapse: How Societies Choose or Fail to Succeed, his first book since the Pulizter prize-winning bestseller Guns, Germs and Steel.

In 2003 , Stephen Hall published Merchants of Immortality: Chasing the Dream of Human Life Extension, a new look at the science and claims of aging research.  In 2002, Richard Preston published The Demon in the Freezer, a bestseller about the first major bioterror event in the U.S. and the government's ongoing efforts to protect against smallpox and other potential bioweapons.  Demon is Preston's first nonfiction book since the The Hot Zone, also supported by the Foundation.

In 2002, Inge and Martin Goldstein published How Much Risk: A Guide to Understanding Environmental Health Hazards.  The Foundation also supported Jeff Wheelwright's The Irritable Heart: The Medical Mystery of the Gulf War; Jon Cohen's Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine; Robert Pool's Fat: Fighting the Obesity Epidemic; and Robert J. Maccoun and Peter Reuter's Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times, and Places.  Work also continued on a book about the neurology of aging by Oliver Sacks and on Richard Rhodes's culminating study about the nuclear era, a trilogy that began with The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, both supported by the Foundation.

The Foundation also supports books that profile scientific figures from varying angles, most recently Victor McElheny's intellectual biography of James Watson, Watson and DNA: Making a Scientific Revolution and Lillian Hoddeson and Vicki Daitch’s True Genius: The Life and Science of John Bardeen.  In 2004, new grants went to books on Nikolai Vavilov, Max Perutz, and William Hamilton, an autobiography by Eric Kandel and a memoir by M.G. Lord.  Previous efforts include The Monk in the Garden by Robin Marantz Henig; Henri Petroski’s Paper Boy; Steve Lohr's Go To: The Story of the Math Majors, Bridge Players, Engineers, Chess Wizards, Scientists and Iconoclasts Who Were the Hero Programmers of the Software Revolution; Claudia Dreifus's Scientific Conversations: Interviews on Science from The New York Times; and Dava Sobel's international bestseller Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love.

Books about the relevance of technology to daily life also find occasional support.  In Fall 2004, Broadway/Doubleday published Theresa Riordan's Inventing Beauty: A History of Innovations That Have Made Us Beautiful, an illustrated account of the technology and culture of beautification. Other books in this category include: Wondrous Contrivances: Technology at the Threshold by Merrit Ierley, an engaging look at Americans' embrace of technology across the years; Grand Central Terminal: Railroads, Engineering, and Architecture in New York City by Kurt C. Schlichting, a detailed account of a landmark engineering and construction project; and Women and the Machine: Representations from the Spinning Wheel to the Electronic Age by Julie Wosk, an historic overview of how women and machines have been represented in art, advertising and literature.

Radio

Most Foundation-supported radio coverage consists of short segments on science and technology topics. These are broadcast daily and sometimes weekly on The World on Public Radio International, on The Osgood File on CBS Radio, and on National Public Radio's popular news magazines.  Over 20 million listeners hear at least one of these science and technology broadcasts each week.  New grants went to NPR for support of a one-hour monthly show about the interaction of science and the arts on Ira Flatow's Science Friday and to Soundvision Productions, producers of the Peabody-winning Series The DNA Files , for a new series about Genomics and Systems Biology.

Public Television

In 2004, The Elegant Universe , a three-part series on string theory based on the best-selling book of the same title by physicist and author Brian Greene aired on NOVA and attracted over 7 million viewers.  The popular, critically acclaimed series, which received a major grant from the Foundation, also won the coveted 2004 Peabody Award for best science documentary and an Emmy award.

DNA. a five-part series on the history of genetics featuring James Watson, aired on WNET/13 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of the double helix. The series, which was also shown on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom, received major, lead funding from the Foundation.

Light Speed a documentary about fiber optics inspired by Jeff Hecht's Sloan Technology Series book, City of Light , aired on WNET/13 Innovation series in 2004.

The Foundation has funded the production of many science and technology television documentaries on PBS's award-winning American Experience .  In 2004, Golden Gate Bridge a show about the construction of San Francisco's famous landmark, aired as part of this distinguished history series.  The Pill, a Sloan-funded American Experience documentary about the social and scientific history of the birth control pill that premiered at The Sundance Film Festival, won an Emmy in 2004. Upcoming American Experience shows supported by the Foundation for 2004 and early 2005 include a documentary about the Alaskan highway and a documentary about laying the first transatlantic cable.

In Fall 2004, They Made America, a four part series based on Harold Evans Foundation-supported book of the same title, will air on WGBH History Unit.  The series, with lead funding from Sloan, will profile great American innovators.

In 2004, WGBH also broadcast Origins, a four-part miniseries about the beginnings of Earth, life and the Universe, hosted by astrophysicist Neal deGrasse Tyson, which received a grant from Sloan.

In 2004, production and post-production work also continued on several television projects supported by the Foundation:

-- a National Geographic special based on Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel.
-- a Kikim Media documentary about the search for an AIDS vaccine, Ending AIDS, based on Jon Cohen book, Shots in the Dark.
-- a WNET/13 4-part series on the technological development of the airplane and air warfare, Warplane.
-- a NOVA two hour biography profiling Percy Julian, a pioneering chemist and industrial leader who was the first African-American elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
-- a new NOVA series, Leading Edge, featuring Life on the Edge, an inside look at the life of individual scientists.
-- a WGBH documentary, in association with French TV, about the aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont, Wings of Madness, based on the Paul Hoffman book of the same title.

Previously, the Foundation funded the Twin Cities production of Benjamin Franklin, a popular three-part biography of the legendary statesman and Founding Father who was also a pioneering scientist and inventor. The show won the Emmy Award in 2003.

In 2003, The Iron Road, a two-hour program about the building of the transcontinental railroad, aired on The American Experience.  Sloan also supported the American Experience production of A Brilliant Madness, the true story of the mathematician John Nash, the subject of Sylvia Nasar's best-selling biography and the Oscar-winning film, A Beautiful Mind.  In 2003, a three-part Socratic Dialogue series on the scientific, legal, and moral aspects of coping with genetic information, Our Genes, Our Choices on WNET/13, aired with Foundation support.

Other noteworthy projects supported by the Foundation that aired in 2002 and will be repeated in 2003-2004 include WNET/13's highly successful production of Frontier House, a six-part series showing how four modern families in 1880's Montana cope with 19th century technology.

The Foundation also funded a television version of Michael Frayn's Tony-winning play Copenhagen , adapted by the playwright, that will be rebroadcast on KCET/PBS Hollywood Presents. Two documentaries by Great Projects that received Foundation support will also be rebroadcast: The Building of America , a four-part series on great civil engineering feats and Rebuilding America , a 90-minute documentary about the clean-up at Ground Zero that featured exclusive footage of the massive recovery effort.

The Foundation has also supported the Science and Technology News Network and The American Communications Foundation to increase television coverage of science and technology news stories.

In 2004, a   Foundation meeting brought together professionals from broadcast, cable, satellite and digital media to explore the possibility of a science channel.

Commercial Television and Films

Note: The Foundation does not accept unsolicited screenplays or treatments or pitch letters. You may contact the individual organizations whose programs we support directly.

Film Schools: The goal of the film schools program is to influence the next generation of filmmakers to create more realistic and dramatic stories about science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers through the visual media.  With Foundation support, prizes are now awarded at six leading film schools to stimulate top students to write and produce new film and television shows about scientists and engineers: American Film Institute ; UCLA School of Theater, Film,and Television ; Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama ; Columbia University Film Department ; NYU Tisch School of the Arts ; and USC School of Cinema-Television.  In addition to screenwriting and production awards, there are now prizes in animation and a first feature film.

In 2004, the American Museum of the Moving Image received a three-year grant to showcase award-winning student films from the Sloan Film Program as part of its on-line collection.  The Museum will also sponsor annual science-in-film panels, screenings and events, including an October 2004 evening centered around the film Primer.

In 2004, screenwriter Nikki del Monico and director Ronald Dottin received the inaugural $100,000 Sloan First Feature Film Prize at Columbia University for Ms. Del Monico's screenplay, Indelible.  Shooting for this Harlem-based film is slated for early 2005.

At New York University, Susan Stanton and Jim Berry received the Tisch School of the Art's second $100,000 first feature Sloan award for Ms. Stanton's screenplay, Rosalind's Helix .

In 2004, script revisions were completed for Lisa Robinson's Signs of Life, recipient of the first-ever $100,000 Sloan First Feature Film Prize , awarded at NYU.  The screenplay, developed by producers Yael Melamed and Eva Kolodner, is currently being cast.

A full-page ad announcing the winners of this year's Sloan screenwriting and film production prizes appeared in the January 2004 issue of Variety and the Hollywood Reporter.

The last Sloan film summit, organized with AFI in 2002, resulted in a logbook of more than 50 of the best Sloan student scripts distributed to entertainment industry professionals.  Demand for this logbook has increased significantly as the program has gained national visibility.  In 2005, a new Sloan film summit will be held and a new logbook compiled for award-winning Sloan screenplays.

Film Festivals:  The Foundation seeks to increase visibility for new, commercial films that probe science and technology with insight or depict scientists and engineers in fresh ways.  It has funded the Hamptons International Film Festival (HIFF) to establish the first Sloan Feature Film Prize in Science and Technology.  In 2004, the $25,000 cash prize went to Academy Award-winning writer-director Bill Condon's Kinsey .   The film, starring Liam Neeson and Laura Linney, was the subject of a panel discussion about research of human behavior and the scientific method.  In 2003, the HIFF/Sloan prize went to Ryan Eslinger's Madness and Genius.  The 21-year-old Eslinger was nominated for an Independent Spirit award for his debut film. The Hamptons festival also held a panel discussion on Science and Hollywood moderated by Paul Cohen of Manhattan Pictures and including James V. Hart, screenwriter of Cosmos and Hook , Anne Druyan, producer and co-author of Cosmos with her late husband, Carl Sagan, physicist Sultan Catto of CUNY and Madness and Genius director Ryan Eslinger.

A founding sponsor of the Tribeca Film Festival , The Foundation also partnered with the Tribeca Film Institute in 2004 to support the third year of this festival. Several films were shown as part of the Science and Technology Film Panel at Tribeca, including the feature Blue Butterfly .  A Tribeca/Sloan film panel was held on DNA and The Double Helix featuring Nobelist and co-discoverer of the double helix James Watson, director Mick Jackson, author Brenda Maddox, scientist Lynn Elkin and host Ira Flatow of Science Friday . The panel was followed by a multimedia presentation, Unraveling the Code: Adapting Rosalind Franklin and DNA based on Ann Sayre's book about Rosalind Franklin, the subject of a new screenplay by David Baxter (see below). Members of Rosalind Franklin's family, including her husband, x-ray crystallographer David Sayre participated in the event. Actors Ian Hart, Haviland Morris and Paul Schneider read scenes based on interviews with Francis Crick, James Watson and Anne Sayre.

A second major Tribeca/Sloan presentation focused on the legendary screen goddess Hedy Lemar and her contribution to frequency hopping, the subject of a new screenplay by Gretchen Somerfeld (see below).  Fatale Weapon: The Unsung Legacy of Hedy Lemar was hosted by ABC correspondent Robert Krulwich who interviewed Hedy Lemar's son Anthony Loder, inventor/ entrepreneur Jerome Swartz, film historian Eliot Stein, Colonel David Hughes, Donna Wildrick of Boeing and screenwriter Somerfeld.  Actors Eva Mendes, Barry Primus and Loren Dean read excerpts from the screenplay.

At the 2004 Sundance Film Festival , the Foundation awarded its second Sundance/Sloan feature film prize for science and technology to Primer , a film about a group of engineers in a garage start-up who stumble on a major discovery.  The debut film, shot for $7000 by Shane Carruth, who also wrote and starred, went on to win The Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, beating out several multimillion dollar films with established stars.  Primer will be released in theaters in late 2004 by Think Films. 

Film and Television Development:  The Foundation seeks to create and develop new scripts about science and technology and to see them into commercial production at the major studios and networks. New efforts in this area include a partnership with producers Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro of the Tribeca Film Institute to develop feature film scripts.  In 2004, two scripts were selected for development by the Tribeca/Sloan Film program: Face Value by Gretchen Somerfeld and Broken Code by David Baxter. Face Value, the story of Hedy Lemar, was the subject of a reading and discussion at the Tribeca Film Festival.  The screenplay has attracted major industry interest from multiple sources and a production deal is being negotiated.   Broken Code , the story of Rosalind Franklin as seen through Ann Sayre's eyes, was also the subject of a panel and presentation at the Tribeca Film Festival.   Ismail Merchant has signed on as executive producer for Broken Code.  Academy Award winning screenwriters Jay Cocks and Ron Nyswaner will mentor the scripts along with leading scientists and engineers.   For script submissions, please contact Duane Watson at dwatson@tribecafilm.com .  For festival inquiries, contact http://www.tribecafilmfestival.com/ .

The Foundation is also working with the Nashville Independent Film Festival and producer Brad Yonover, whose credits include In the Bedroom, to develop half a dozen screenplays and treatments on science and technology-related subjects. One of the scripts, The Lacan File, has been the subject of broad studio interest.  For script submissions or other inquiries please contact brad.yonover@palmpictures.com

The Foundation and the Sundance Institute also support an annual Sloan Fellow to develop a science and technology script through the Sundance Screenwriter's Lab and other Institute programs.  A special bridge grant will help move the best qualified scripts into production.  In 2003, Michael Freedman was selected as the first Sundance/Sloan Fellow for his script, All of Creation.  For information on the labs and the festival, please contact Ilyse McKimmie at FeatureFilmProgram@sundance.org .

In 2002, the Foundation began a three-year collaboration with the Hamptons International Film Festival to develop science and technology scripts through their Hamptons Screenwriting Conference.  The two scripts selected for 2004 were Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz's Mütter and Casper Wong's Baby Face. For script submissions or information on the festival, please contact Denise Kassell, hiff@hamptonsfilmfest.org.

The Foundation is also working with veteran film producer Beverley Camhe to develop a treatment for a TV movie about bioterrorism and with actor-producer Bob Balaban to develop a feature film about Nikola Tesla.  David Milch, co-creator of NYPD Blue and creator of Deadwood, has worked with the Foundation to develop a new network television series featuring scientists and engineers.  

Theater

The goal of this program is to encourage leading artists and playwrights to create new works about scientists and engineers that will break down the barrier between "the two cultures."   With Foundation support, the Ensemble Studio Theater (EST) established a new program focused on science and technology plays and launched in 1999 a competition for new dramatic works exploring the worlds of science and technology.  Each year, several hundred play submissions are received and evaluated and over a dozen full-length and one-act plays are commissioned at EST.

Past main-stage productions include, in 1999, Tesla's Letters by Jeff Stanley, which was later performed in Virginia and at the Edinburgh Fringe; and in 2000, Moving Bodies by Arthur Giron, also seen in 2001 at the Marin County Playhouse in California.

In 2000, the EST/Sloan First Light Festival introduced Michael Frayn's play, Copenhagen to New York with a daylong special event, Creating Copenhagen, exploring the play's scientific, historical and theatrical perspectives.  Copenhagen went on to a successful run on Broadway and a Tony Award for best play.

In 2001, Paul Mullin's Louis Slotin Sonata was an EST main-stage production that also received a special reading at Los Alamos, the play's setting. Mathew Wells' play Schroedinger's Cat, commissioned and developed by EST/Sloan, appeared at the Magic Theater in San Francisco in 2001.

In 2002, the EST/Sloan main-stage production featured The Secret Order by Bob Clyman. The play drew large audiences and received excellent reviews. In 2003, producer Norman Twain mounted the play at the Laguna Playhouse where it continued to draw large audiences and received several stellar notices . Twain currently is developing the play for a 2005 Broadway run.

The EST/Sloan 2003 First Light Festival featured String Fever by Jacquelyn Reingold.  The sold-out play, starring Cynthia Nixon and Evan Handler, received critical accolades and broke the EST box office record. It was selected for a 2003 anthology of best plays by women playwrights and will be published by Samuel French.

In 2004, Michael Hollinger's Tooth and Claw was the mainstage production of the EST/Sloan First Light Festival and received excellent reviews.  Other readings and workshops include Carey Perloff's Luminescence Dating , which featured Academy Award winner Olympia Dukakis and Arthur Giron's Days of Happiness.

The EST/Sloan collaboration includes a promising new effort to link regional theaters across the country to produce science and technology plays.  This National Partnership for New Plays (NP2) has entered into relationships with over 20 theaters in the U.S.  The EST/Sloan Project is also exploring new projects with the Carnegie Mellon Entertainment Technology Center and with other institutions of higher learning.

For submissions or more information on the EST/Sloan Project, please contact J. Holtham at The Ensemble Studio Theater, 549 West 52nd Street, New York, NY 10019. Email: sloanproject@ensemblestudiotheatre.org .   Phone: 212-247-4982 x20 .

In 2000, the Foundation also began a new partnership with the Manhattan Theater Club (MTC) to develop new plays about science and technology and to nurture playwrights with an interest in these subjects.  The first Sloan/MTC collaboration centered on David Auburn's Proof, a surprise hit that went from Off-Broadway to Broadway and won both the Tony Award and the Pulitzer Prize.  The film version of Proof, adapted by Auburn and starring Gwyneth Paltrow, will be released by Miramax in early 2005.

In 2004, the Foundation expanded its program with MTC to include three playwright commissions a year plus a production grant for a science and technology play.  The three playwrights selected in 2004 were Shelagh Stephenson, Timberlake Wertenbaker and Peter Morris.

In 2004, the Sloan/MTC program featured a full workshop with live music from Glen Burger's new play On Words and Onwards, the first recipient of the MTC/Sloan playwrighting fellowship.  MTC also did a reading of John Walch's Sloan-commissioned play-in-progress, The Nature Of Mutation.  

In 2003, Humble Boy made its North American debut at MTC.  The award-winning play by Charlotte Jones, starring Blair Brown and Jared Harris, was supported by the MTC/Sloan program.

 
For submissions or more information about the MTC/Sloan program, please contact Emily Shooltz at the Manhattan Theater Club, 212-399-3000 or eshooltz@mtc-nyc.org.

In 2003, the Foundation also supported a special evening to launch the new Second Stage production of The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci.  The evening, hosted by Leonard Lopate, featured excerpts from the play along with a discussion among the playwright Mary Zimmerman, Brian Greene and Margaret Livingstone.

In 2002, Sloan supported a discussion with actor and author Steve Martin about his new book, Funny Numbers.  The discussion, hosted by Robert Osserman of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute , featured an appearance by actor Robin Williams and a lively riff on math, science and everyday life.

New Media

The Foundation occasionally sponsors efforts to reach a broad audience through use of new media.  In 2003, Sloan gave a grant to Project Rebirth to create a web site chronicling the rebuilding at Ground Zero.  Since early 2002, Project Rebirth has been taking one photograph every five minutes from seven time-lapse cameras strategically sited around Ground Zero.  The new web site, which went live in September 2004, includes a real-time camera trained on Ground Zero, time lapse loops covering the past three years of rebuilding and detailed explanations of the engineering, architecture and other technical challenges involved in this historic effort.

In 2004, the Foundation also gave mathematician David Gale an officer grant to explore the possibility of an on-line or virtual math museum.  Gale has created a few prototypes and is talking to the Exploratorium and other potential partners.

Previously, Sloan has supported Arizona State University Foundation and the Institute of Human Origins in establishing a national web site on human evolution, http://www.becominghuman.org/ .  The site has won several awards.  The Foundation also contributed to a major conference at MIT, Image and Meaning , about communicating science and technology through visual media.  The Foundation previously funded an exhibition and webcasts on human body imaging technology at the San Francisco Exploratorium .

In 2002, Sloan supported Art and Optics , a special conference at NYU's New York Institute for the Humanities.  The conference examined a provocative thesis by painter David Hockney and physicist Charles Falco about the hidden use of optical devices by the Great Masters.

For use of the World Wide Web to record history, see under History of Science and Technology