The National Action Council on Minorities in Engineering (NACME) administers the Foundation’s graduate scholarship programs, including the Minority PhD program (MPHD) and the Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership (SIGP).  In this role, NACME maintains records on MPHD and SIGP graduate students and tracks and manages the disbursement of Sloan scholarship and other funding commitments.   NACME also plays an essential role both in the analysis of supported graduate students performance and outcomes, and in managing the community of campus participants in Sloan programs. Funds from this grant will support these activities for years. In addition to continued execution of this role, NACME will pursue three additional objectives over the course of the three-year grant period.  First it will expand its analysis of student records to discover trends impacting the performance of Sloan scholars in the MPHD and SIGP programs.  Second, it will expand and assess efforts to build community among UCEMs with the implementation and management of a new online platform, SloanConnect, and other associated strategies.  Third it will test potential new surveys and program elements to assess their value for implementation.

BetaNYC is a local civic technology nonprofit whose mission is to improve New York City governance through the more effective use of data and software inside municipal government. BetaNYC’s primary strategy is to engage at the most grassroots level of city government through a program that embeds tech-savvy City University of New York (CUNY) students inside local community boards and the offices of NYC borough presidents. These technology fellows help government officials assess internal technology needs and design and execute technology projects aimed at improving constituent services.  Funds from this grant support the continuation of the fellowship program as well as other capacity-building services to community boards and city agencies.  Grant funds are being administered by the Fund for the City of New York, acting as the fiscal agent for BetaNYC.

This grant provides funding to Film Independent (FIND) to organize, publicize and host the next Sloan Film Summit, a major convening of all grantees in the Foundation’s Film program, held every three years pre-COVID. FIND will continue to include public-facing events that go beyond the Sloan attendees. FIND’s own membership has grown by 25% since the last summit and includes over 7,500 filmmakers, who will be among the target audience. The three-day summit, which will feature some 150 attendees, offers a rare opportunity for mingling and interacting among students, faculty, and administrators from the six long-established Sloan film schools; filmmakers and leaders from the five Sloan screenplay development and film festival partners; and the Museum of the Moving Image, Coolidge Corner Theatre, and the Science and Entertainment Exchange. The 2021 Summit will also include representatives from new entrants to the Sloan Film program, including the six new film schools in the Discovery Awards program and the Athena Film Festival and North Fork TV Festival. Planned activities at the festival include an opening night film screening and dinner, updates on Sloan award recipients, case studies of successful filmmaker-scientists collaborations, a networking lunch that connects filmmakers with scientists, staged screenplay readings, a panel where leading scientists discuss underappreciated scientific discoveries, and an industry connection event that will allow 100 filmmakers to meet one-on-one with agents, casting directors, distributors, and other industry executives.

This grant funds an innovative awards program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts (NYU) that aims to promote the production of a science- or technology-themed full length feature film by students at the nation’s premier film school. The process begins with NYU film student submissions of one-page pitches of science films they propose to make. A dozen quarter-finalists are selected to move forward, and write step-by-step breakdowns of their films. Six semifinalists are then chosen and given a month to meet with scientists and film faculty to improve the science content, narrative, and design of their films before submitting revised treatments. Three winners are then selected and each is awarded $5,000 to develop their treatments into full-scale feature screenplays. Once screenplays are submitted, one winner is selected, who receives a $100,000 production award to make their first feature film. Grant funds support the continuation of this awards program for the next three years.

This grant funds an awards program by Film Independent (FIND), producer of the Independent Spirit Awards, that aims to help produce and distribute feature films with scientific or technological themes, or those that feature scientists, engineers, technologists, inventors, or mathematicians as major characters.   FIND makes several grants a year to achieve its aims: one producer a year selected to develop a science-themed script in FIND’s Producing Lab, with a $30,000 Producer’s grant and a reception and promotion around this project; one producer or producing team a year awarded a Sloan Fast Track Fellowship, which is a $20,000 cash grant and invitation to the Fast Track film financing market; one outstanding episodic television writer a year supported with a $15,000 grant to develop science-themed series in FIND’s new Episodic Lab; and an average of one exceptional science-themed film every 18 months for a total of two distribution grants of $50,000 each to incentivize buyers to acquire an eligible film for distribution. To date, FIND’s program has been a success. Every project supported has either been completed and released theatrically, is currently in preproduction, or remains at the script development stage. In addition, the program has an admirable record of promoting diverse voices, with women and people of color representing over 60% of their filmmakers.

Launched by the National Academy of Sciences in 2008 with Sloan support, the Science and Entertainment Exchange (the Exchange), is an ongoing program to increase the quality of scientific content in American film through providing directors, producers, and other Hollywood film executives with access to high quality consulting by real working scientists and researchers. Providing more than 250 consultations a year, the Exchange works to ensure accuracy when science is used in film and television, seeds new ideas within Hollywood by exposing creative and industry professionals to new scientific content, and acts as a well of professional advice across a wide range of scientific topics. This grant provides support for the Exchange for a period of three years, including funds to support science consultations, help expand and diversify the Exchange’s roster of more than 3,000 science consultants, create up to six videos targeting an online audience, and launch a new monthly series of online events designed to highlight successful industry-scientist partnerships fostered by the program.  

A professor of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School, Robert Putnam became famous in 2000 when he published the bestseller Bowling Alone, a prescient analysis of the fraying of civic life in America. In that work, Putnam vividly documented the unraveling of the clubs, groups, leagues, and other community organizations that had previously bound Americans together, leading to social isolation, malaise, and a collapse of civic engagement and trust in American institutions. Since then, he has published important work on the religious roots of the culture wars and the decrease of social interactions among different socioeconomic classes.  Funds from this grant support the production of Unraveling America: A Social Science Detective Story with Robert Putnam, a documentary film about Putnam and his work, to be directed jointly by filmmakers Rebecca Davis and Pete Davis, a former student of Putnam’s.

This grant provides funding for a major new effort by Pioneer Works—a thriving, multidisciplinary cultural center in Red Hook, NY—to launch its new multicultural and interdisciplinary website, The Broadcast. The Broadcast’s Science Channel will include science-themed video, animations, podcasts, and editorial presented in fresh, original ways and featuring some of the most important scientists and scientific ideas of our day. Content development is being overseen by Janna Levin, the head of Pioneer Works’ science program and Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Barnard College/Columbia University. Planned content includes a fresh mix of programming, including Pioneer Works’s signature Scientific Controversies series, in which Levin interviews two leading scientists about their latest work, along with Author Talks, Conversations, Science and Society, The Universe in Verse, and Condensed Matters. In addition to supporting content development and production, grant funds will support an ambitious marketing and social media campaign that includes a major build-out of Pioneer Works’s website, as well as expanded content through their newsletter, YouTube channel, Instagram, and Twitter.

This grant provides funding to American Masters for the research, production, and broadcast of a 90-minute documentary about the life, work, and impact of Dr. Anthony Fauci, The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for almost 40 years, Dr. Fauci has become an international celebrity and the face of science and reason in responding to COVID-19, advising the government and educating the public about the virus, the nature of pandemics, and how best to protect ourselves individually and as a society. In revisiting the long arc of Fauci’s career and his role in combatting HIV/AIDS, SARS, Ebola, and COVID-19, the documentary promises to shine a light on Fauci’s professional evolution, the political and social forces that shape epidemic responses in the United States, and the evolution of vaccine development, clinical drug trials, and public health policy. The documentary will air in 2021 as part of a PBS strand focusing on health issues.

This grant provides funding for bestselling author Steven Johnson and historian David Olusoga, working with Nutopia, an award-winning TV production company, to produce and broadcast Extra Life: A Short History of Living Longer, a four-part television series that will examine the COVID-19 pandemic in light of the past 300-year history of public health. Scheduled to air on PBS in the spring of 2021, each episode will juxtapose COVID-19 with one aspect of medicine and public health that has played a central role in increasing life expectancy over the past 100 years. Episode one explores our growing ability to prevent the spread of illness through the use of variolation and vaccination. Episode two explores the role of analyzing and mapping data—the science of epidemiology—in improving societal health outcomes. Episode three focuses on the surprisingly recent invention of penicillin and other medicines that combat illness directly. The final episode looks at the scientific and regulatory innovations that promote public safety and healthy behaviors.