Bill Nye

Bill Nye
Nye at the Astrobiology Lab during a tour of Goddard Space Flight Center, September 2011
Born	William Sanford Nye (1955-11-27) November 27, 1955 (age 61) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Residence	Los Angeles, California; New York City, New York
Nationality	American
Fields	Mechanical engineering
Institutions	Boeing Cornell University The Planetary Society
Alma mater	Cornell University (B.S.)
Known for	Bill Nye the Science Guy
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William Sanford "Bill" Nye (born November 27, 1955), popularly known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, is an American science educator, television presenter, and mechanical engineer. He is best known as the host of the PBS children's science show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993–1998), and for his many subsequent appearances in popular media as a science educator. Currently, he is the CEO of The Planetary Society.

Nye was born on November 27, 1955, in Washington, D.C., to Jacqueline (née Jenkins; 1921–2000), a codebreaker during World War II, and Edwin Darby "Ned" Nye (1917–1997), also a World War II veteran, whose experience without electricity in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp led him to become a sundial enthusiast.

After attending Lafayette Elementary and Alice Deal Junior High in the city, he was accepted to the private Sidwell Friends School on a partial scholarship and graduated in 1973. He studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University (where he took an astronomy class taught by Carl Sagan) and graduated with a B.S. in mechanical engineering in 1977. Nye occasionally returns to Cornell as a guest-lecturer of introductory-level astronomy and human ecology classes.

Nye began his career in Seattle at Boeing, where, among other things, he starred in training films and developed a hydraulic pressure resonance suppressor for the 747. Later, he worked as a consultant in the aeronautics industry. In 1999, he told the St. Petersburg Times that he applied to be a NASA astronaut every few years, but was always rejected.