Bill Nye

William Sanford Nye (, born November 27, 1955) is an American mechanical engineer, science communicator, and television presenter.

Nye was born November 27, 1955, in Washington, D.C., to Jacqueline Jenkins (1921–2000), who was a codebreaker during World War II, and Edwin Darby "Ned" Nye (1917–1997), who also served in World War II and worked as a contractor building an airstrip on Wake Island.

He is related to William Foster Nye, founder of Nye Lubricants in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Ned was captured and spent four years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp; living without electricity or watches, he learned how to tell time using the shadow of a shovel handle, spurring his passion for sundials.

Jenkins-Nye was among a small elite group of young women known as "Goucher Girls", alumnae of Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, whom the Navy enlisted to help crack codes used by Japan and Germany.

"She wasn't Rosie the Riveter, she was Rosie the Top-Secret Code Breaker", Nye recalls.

"People would ask her what she did during World War II and she'd say, 'I can't talk about it, ha ha ha!

Nye attended Lafayette Elementary School and Alice Deal Middle School before attending Sidwell Friends School for high school on a scholarship, graduating in 1973.

After graduating from Sidwell Friends, he attended Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he studied at the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.

His enthusiasm for science deepened after he took an astronomy class with Carl Sagan at Cornell.

In 1977, Nye graduated from Cornell University with a BS in mechanical engineering.

After graduating from Cornell, Nye worked as an engineer for the Boeing Corporation and Sundstrand Data Control near Seattle.

At Boeing, he invented a hydraulic resonance suppressor tube used on Boeing 747 airplanes.

He applied four times, unsuccessfully, for NASA's astronaut training program.

Nye started doing standup comedy after winning a Steve Martin lookalike contest in 1978.

Nye's friends asked him to do Steve Martin impressions at parties, and he discovered how much he enjoyed making people laugh.

He began moonlighting as a comedian while working at Boeing.

He has stated, "At this point in our story, I was working on business jet navigation systems, laser gyroscope systems during the day, and I'd take a nap and go do stand-up comedy by night."

He also participated in Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and volunteered at the Pacific Science Center on weekends as a "Science Explainer".

In 1986, he left Boeing to pursue comedy—writing and performing for the local sketch television show Almost Live!, where he regularly conducted wacky scientific experiments.

Aspiring to become the next Mr. Wizard, Nye successfully pitched the children's television program Bill Nye the Science Guy to Seattle's public television station, KCTS-TV.

Nye quit his job at Boeing on October 3, 1986, to focus on his burgeoning comedy career.

In 1986, Nye worked as a writer/actor on a local sketch comedy television show in Seattle called Almost Live!.

He first got his big break on the show from John Keister who met him during an open mic night.

After a guest canceled, cohost Ross Shafer told Nye he had seven minutes of programming to fill.

"Why don't you do that science stuff?"

During Nye's 10-year college reunion in 1987, he went to great lengths to meet with Carl Sagan at Cornell.

Sagan's assistant told Nye, "Okay, you can talk to him for five minutes."

In their meeting at the space sciences building, Nye explained that he was interested in developing a science television program.

"I mentioned how I planned to talk about bridges and bicycles and so on—stuff that, as an engineer, I'd been interested in—and [Sagan] said, 'Focus on pure science. Kids resonate to pure science rather than technology.' And that turned out to be great advice."

He is best known as the host of the science education television show Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993–1999) and as a science educator in pop culture.

Born in Washington, D.C., Nye began his career as a mechanical engineer for Boeing in Seattle, where he invented a hydraulic resonance suppressor tube used on 747 airplanes.

The show—which proudly proclaimed in its theme song that "science rules!"—ran from 1993 to 1998 in national TV syndication.

Known for its "high-energy presentation and MTV-paced segments", the program became a hit among kids and adults, was critically acclaimed, and was nominated for 23 Emmy Awards, winning 19, including Outstanding Performer in Children's Programming for Nye himself.

Nye continued to advocate for science, becoming the CEO of The Planetary Society.

He has written two bestselling books on science: Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation (2014) and Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World (2015).

He has appeared frequently on other TV shows, including Dancing with the Stars, The Big Bang Theory, and Inside Amy Schumer.

He starred in a documentary about his life and science advocacy, Bill Nye: Science Guy, which premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival in March 2017; and, in October 2017, was named a NYT Critic's Pick.

In 2017, the Netflix series Bill Nye Saves the World debuted, and ran for three seasons until 2018.

His most recent series, The End Is Nye, premiered August 25, 2022, on Peacock and Syfy.