Background

Ethnicity: Bill Nye has English, French, Welsh, and Irish ancestry.

Bill Nye was born on November 27, 1955, in Washington, D.C., the United States, to Jacqueline Nye and Edwin Darby Nye. His father was a World War II vet and sundial enthusiast. His mother was a scientist who worked as a codebreaker during the war.

Education

Bill Nye went to Lafayette Elementary School and then enrolled at Alice Deal Junior High. Then Nye attended Washington D.C.’s Sidwell Friends School - a private Quaker institution where Chelsea Clinton, Sasha and Malia Obama, and many other politicians' kids have studied - for middle and high school.

Nye attended Sidwell thanks to a partial scholarship and his parents’ determination, which helped him transfer from a public school where classrooms were packed, spitballs flew freely, and bullies harassed bussed-in students from nearby schools that "were really not separate, and most especially not equal."

In 1973, Nye relocated to Ithaca, New York to pursue his science inclinations. It was at Cornell University and then Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering that he found a true passion for the field, and he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering in 1977.

Career

Nye went on to begin his career at The Boeing Company in Seattle, where he would live for many years. Nye developed a hydraulic pressure resonance suppressor that is still used in the Boeing 747. After leaving his position at Boeing, Bill Nye would periodically apply to be an astronaut at NASA.

Before Bill Nye became the science guy, he was very interested in comedy. He was inspired was Steve Martin, alleging that he won a Steve Martin look-alike contest. Nye also used to impersonate Martin at parties. Nye then began performing stand up comedy, but things didn’t always go well, with Nye later referring to his act as "mediocre." He eventually quit his day job and became a comedy writer and performer on the show Almost Live. It was there that he earned the nickname "the Science Guy."

From 1991 to 1993, Nye appeared as an assistant to Dr. Emmett Brown in the show Back to the Future: The Animated Series. In the show, he demonstrated science experiments explained by Dr. Brown. Soon after, Seattle's PBS KCTS-TV produced the show Bill Nye the Science Guy, an educational television program that aired from September 10, 1993, to June 20, 1998.

Nye hosted the show, which aimed to teach science to a preteen audience: Each of the 100 episodes focused on a specific topic, making them valuable resources for schools. Over its five-year run, the show won 19 Emmy Awards; Nye personally received seven Emmys for writing, performing, and producing.

In 1998, Nye appeared in Disney’s movie The Principal Takes a Holiday. In the film, he played the role of a science teacher. He continued to exhibit his enthusiasm for science. In the 2000s, Nye served as a technical expert in an American robot combat television series titled BattleBots. He also hosted the show 100 Greatest Discoveries for Discovery HD Theatre. He hosted Greatest Inventions with Bill Nye for Discovery.

Nye joined The Planetary Society as a charter member when the organization was founded in 1980 and deepened his involvement over time. He joined the Board of Directors in 2005, taking on the role of President of the Board, and was elected to the position of CEO in 2010.

During that time, Nye co-developed MarsDial, which is a sundial created for the Mars Exploration Rover missions. The dial was developed to help keep track of time when an astronaut is on Mars. Nye went on to work on other television shows, including The Eyes of Nye, a science show aimed at an older audience, and the Planet Green Network's Stuff Happens program. He also hosted the 100 Greatest Discoveries show and began appearing in videos for several attractions at Walt Disney World and Epcot, including one with Ellen DeGeneres.

In 2008, Nye made appearances on shows like America’s Most Smartest Model, Larry King Live, The Climate Code, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, etc. In The Climate Code, he spoke about saving energy. In 2013, Nye took on a different type of television role by joining the cast of celebrity contestants on the popular competition Dancing with the Stars.

Along with his TV programs, Nye has written several children's books about science. Moving on to more grown-up fare, he published Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation in 2014 and followed with Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World the next year. In 2017, he delivered Everything All at Once, in which he promised to show how "thinking like a nerd is the key to changing yourself and the world around you."

In 2016, he appeared in a documentary called Food Evolution. Narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, the documentary was directed by Scott Hamilton Kennedy. In 2017, Nye launched a Netflix show, Bill Nye Saves the World, which explores science topics that affect everyday lives and invites both celebrity guest speakers and experts to join in on the discussions.

Achievements

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  Making science entertaining and accessible is something Bill has been doing most of his life. With humor and intelligence, Bill Nye engages audiences with stories of science and obviously educating at the same time. He is best known as the host of the PBS children’s science show Bill Nye the Science Guy, and for his many subsequent appearances in popular media as a science educator and advocate.
  
  Nye has received multiple honorary doctorates over the years from schools including Rutgers, Johns Hopkins, and Lehigh University. He received the Humanist of the Year Award in 2010 from the American Humanist Association.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Bill Nye the Science Guy's Great Big Book of Tiny Germs

    (Germs, germs, everywhere! Did you know that: - Some germs...)

    2005
  • Bill Nye's Great Big World of Science

    (An instant New York Times bestseller! The must-have, ever...)

    2020
  • Bill Nye the Science Guy's Great Big Book of Science: Featuring Oceans and Dinosaurs

    (Bill Nye delivers twice the knowledge and fun in an affor...)

    2005
  • Bill Nye the Science Guy's Great Big Dinosaur Dig

    (In this book, science expert and television celebrity Bil...)

    2002
  • Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World

    (Just as World War II called an earlier generation to grea...)

    2015
  • Bill Nye the Science Guy's Big Blue Ocean

    (Describes the ocean and its life forms and suggests relat...)

    1999
  • Bill Nye the Science Guy's Consider the Following: A Way Cool Set of Science Questions, Answers, and Ideas to Ponder

    (Presents discussions and experiments which deal with ques...)

    1995
  • Jack and the Geniuses: At the Bottom of the World

    (Jack and his foster siblings, Ava and Matt, are not your ...)

    2017
  • In the Deep Blue Sea: Jack and the Geniuses

    (Jack and his genius siblings, Ava and Matt, embark on an ...)

    2017
  • Everything All at Once: How to Unleash Your Inner Nerd, Tap into Radical Curiosity and Solve Any Problem

    (Bill Nye has been the public face of science for more tha...)

    2017
  • Bill Nye The Science Guy's Big Blast Of Science

    (Bill Nye The Science Guy knows how cool science can be. A...)

    1993
  • Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation

    (Sparked by a provocative comment to BigThink.com last fal...)

    2014
  • Lost in the Jungle: Jack and the Geniuses

    (Dr. Hank Witherspoon has disappeared. When Jack and his g...)

    2018

• TV show

  • Bill Nye The Science Guy

    (With 28 Emmys and a slew of other prestigious awards, Dis...)

Religion

Bill Nye is an agnostic. Though he claims to be tolerant toward people’s traditions and beliefs about God, meaning, and morality, Nye’s ideas are definitely hostile toward the biblical Christian worldview. The chief foundations of a biblical worldview are beliefs in God as a Creator of all things and the Bible as God’s inerrant Word. In contrast, Nye, as a secular humanist, insists that because science is "not supernatural," any explanations that invoke miracles in the past are unscientific.

Politics

Bill Nye supported numerous democratic candidates, including Jay Inslee, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama.

Views

Bill Nye promotes education shape-ups and the importance of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) learning any chance he gets - and he makes sure there are plenty. In addition to speaking and writing widely on the topics, he’s a frequent speaker at conferences of the National Science Teachers Association.

While many are still critical of the change, Nye was a supporter of Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet status. Although Nye doesn’t mind the idea of terraforming Mars in theory, he isn’t a believer in hard science.

Quotations: "Science rules!"

"Everything you can touch and depend on in our society goes back to science."

"Good science makes a clean environment."

"We want to get young people excited about inventing so they'll be future inventors, and change the world."

"Science is the most important thing you can study in school."

"I find both humor and grimness in most issues."

"If we found life on Mars, it would change everybody's view of our place in space."

Membership

Nye became a member of The Planetary Society, an organization dedicated to extraterrestrial exploration that was co-founded by Carl Sagan in 1980. After taking on other roles in the organization following Sagan’s death, as Nye explained in an interview, "There was a dinner party, there was wine or something, and now I'm the CEO, I'm the head guy of the Planetary Association, so Carl Sagan is deep within me. I am part of his legacy.”

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  The Planetary Society

  1980

Personality

Nye respects the scientific merit of cannabis research, especially in terms of its medicinal value. However, Nye is not a smoker himself. He doesn’t like the smell and generally doesn’t like pot because he has memories of his ultimate Frisbee teammates frequently showing up to games high back in college.

By Nye’s count, he has about 500 bow ties, and eight tie racks to fit them all. Nye also makes sure to wear a different one for every episode of Bill Nye Saves the World. However, his collection keeps on growing, since every university he goes to gives him a university bow tie.

Nye is a fan of baseball. Due to his longtime residence in Seattle, he was initially a Mariners fan, but his Washington roots have now taken over and made him a Nationals fan.

Physical Characteristics: "It's his gift. He makes science understandable and fun, and he knows how to connect with people." - Bruce Lewenstein

Interests

• Cooking, dancing

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Carl Sagan, Martin Luther King

• Politicians

  Jay Inslee, Joe Biden, Barack Obama

• Writers

  Born Standing Up by Steve Martin, Cosmos by Carl Sagan, Fundamentals of Modern Physics by Robert Martin Eisberg, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham

• Artists

  Steve Martin

• Sport & Clubs

  Softball, table tennis, baseball, Washington Nationals

• Music & Bands

  Aretha Franklin, Steve Aoki

Connections

Bill Nye's only prominent relationship and then marriage was with Blair Tindall, a famous writer. They started dating on September 8, 2005, and it lasted until they got engaged on December 2, 2005. The engagement turned into marriage on February 3, 2006. However, the married life wasn’t as fruitful and long, and ended after only 26 days, in March 2006.

Father:

Edwin Darby Nye

Nye’s father was a World War II veteran who survived Japanese prisoner-of-war camps. While in captivity, Edwin Darby Nye made a sundial in order to tell time. His son Bill would later create a sundial that would assist the Mars Rover with its missions. The MarsDial had different-colored panels, helping to calibrate the color on the rovers’ photos, and keep time.

Mother:

Jacqueline Nye

Nye’s mother, Jacqueline Jenkins-Nye, served as a codebreaker during World War II. After graduating from Goucher College, where she studied math and psychology, Jenkins-Nye was recruited to code-breaking efforts, even working in the same room as the people who cracked the infamous Enigma machine. Jenkins-Nye served as a "Goucher girl" until the end of World War II and later returned to school to earn master's and doctoral degrees in education. She died of cancer in 2000.

ex-spouse:

Blair Tindall

Nye had a brief and tumultuous relationship with musician Blair Tindall. They were engaged for five months and married on February 3, 2006. The license was declared invalid seven weeks later and the two separated. In 2007, Tindall broke into Nye’s home, stole his laptop (which she used to send defamatory emails while impersonating Nye), and damaged his garden with herbicide, resulting in Nye gaining a protective order against her.

mentor:

Carl Sagan

While at Cornell University, Nye took an Astronomy class taught by Carl Sagan, and the older man’s enthusiasm and penchant for innovation helped ignite Nye’s lifelong charge to achieve the same. At a reunion years later, Nye also mentioned his TV plans to Sagan and received good, matter-of-fact advice from his former professor that would help make Bill Nye the Science Guy such a success: "Focus on pure science. Kids resonate to pure science."

References

• Bill Nye on Instagram
• Bill Nye on Facebook
• Bill Nye on Twitter