Alda

Actor, director and writer Alan Alda will visit campus May 21-24 to lead a workshop for scientists on communicating science, with a public lecture May 22.

The lecture on science communication will be at 7:30 p.m. in Schwartz Auditorium, Rockefeller Hall. Free tickets are available starting May 10 in 420 Physical Sciences Building, 242 Carpenter Hall and 260 Roberts Hall.

The three-day workshop, which will include participation by around 50 Cornell faculty members, is being hosted by the Kavli Institute at Cornell for Nanoscale Science and the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University.

Alda, known for his roles on the television series “M*A*S*H” and “The West Wing,” has said that “the best thing I ever did in front of a camera” was hosting PBS’s “Scientific American Frontiers” from 1993 to 2005.

As host of the series, Alda interviewed hundreds of scientists and became convinced that many researchers need help telling their stories and educating the public about science. He played a pivotal role in creating the center at Stony Brook, and has since been leading workshops that use improvisational theater and other techniques to help scientists communicate directly and personally.

Additional support for the event comes from the Cornell Center for Materials Research and the Energy Materials Center at Cornell.