Ann Druyan

At 74 years old, Ann Druyan has this physical status:

Ann Druyan (DREE-ann; born June 13, 1949) is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning American writer, producer, and director specializing in science communication.

She co-wrote Cosmos, a 1980 PBS documentary film starring Carl Sagan, whom she married in 1981.

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey and its forthcoming new season, Creater, producer, and writer.

She has been credited with both directing episodes of both series as well. She was the Creative Director of NASA's Voyager Interstellar Message Project, which included golden discs attached to both the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft.

On the "Little Spacecraft That Could" segment of 60 Minutes on July 8, Druyan's contribution to the project was discussed. Druyan requested that Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" be included on the Golden Record, including ""Johnny B. Goode, of moving, of seeing what you've never seen before, and the odds are against you," he said in the segment. "That was Voyager." In 1990, Sagan's proposal that Voyager 1 pulls its cameras back to Earth to photograph a series of photographs depicting the planets of our solar system was also discussed.

The images, which were seen from a distance of 3.7 billion miles as a small piece of bluish light, became the basis for Sagan's famous "Pale Blue Dot" passage, first published in Pale Blue Dot: A History of the Human Future in Space.

(1994) "Druyan and Sagan's professional development and resulting romantic relationship has been discussed in popular culture, including the Radiolab episode "Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan's Ultimate Mix Tape" and a portion of Comedy Central's program "Space," among others. Warner Brothers was announced in 2015 that they were collaborating on a drama involving Sagan and Druyan's union, which will be produced by producer Lynda Obst and Druyan.

Early life

Druyan was born in Queens, New York, and Pearl A.'s daughter was born. (née Goldsmith) and Harry Druyan, co-owned a knitwear company, co-owned a knitwear business. Druyan's early interest in mathematics and science was "derailed" when a junior high school teacher ridiculed a question she asked about university.' "You mean this extends to every circle in the universe," I raised my hand. 'And the instructor told me not to ask stupid questions.' And here I was having this religious experience, and she made me feel like such jerks. "I was completely flummoxed from the start to college." Druyan characterized her three years at New York University as "disastrous," and it was only after she dropped out of school without graduating that she discovered the pre-Socratic philosophers and began learning herself, sparking a renewed interest in science.

Personal life

Many popular culture has discussed Druyan and Sagan's relationship, as well as the Radiolab episode "Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan's Ultimate Mix Tape" and a section of the Comedy Central program "Space." Druyan's asteroid 4970 Druyan, which is in a companion orbit with asteroid 2709 Sagan named after Druyan's late husband, is named after Druyan. Warner Brothers was revealed in 2015 that it was working on a drama about Sagan and Druyan's friendship, which would be produced by producer Lynda Obst and Druyan.

Sasha Sagan, a son of Sagan and Druyan, published a book For Small Creatures Such As We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World in 2020, which addresses her relationship with her parents and father's death when she was fourteen years old.

Sasha was also cast in Cosmos: Possible Worlds, where she played her own grandmother, as well as in the episode Man of a Trillion Worlds, which portrayed Carl Sagan's life.

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Career

Druyan became the Voyager Interstellar Message Project's Creative Director in the late 1970s. Druyan, a creative director, collaborated with a team to produce a complicated message for future alien civilizations, which included music and photos. These golden phonograph records attached to Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft are now beyond the solar system's outermost planets, and Voyager 1 has entered outer space. Both documents have a predicted shelf life of one billion years.

On the "Little Spacecraft That Could" segment of 60 Minutes, Druyan's role on the project was discussed. Druyan argued in the segment that Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" be included on the Golden Record, saying: "Johnny B. Goode, of moving, of being anywhere you've never been before, but the odds are against you." That was Voyager. In 1990, Sagan suggested that Voyager 1 turn its cameras backwards to take a series of photographs depicting the planets of our solar system. The images, which were seen from a distance of 3.7 billion miles as a small point of bluish light, were used to create Sagan's famous "Pale Blue Dot" passage, first published in Pale Blue Dot: A Human Future in Space (1994).

During that time, Druyan co-wrote (with Carl Sagan and Steven Soter) the 1980 PBS documentary series Cosmos, hosted by Carl Sagan. The thirteen-part series covered a variety of scientific fields, including the origins of life and a view of our position in the universe. It was highly praised, and at the time, it was the most watched program in American public television history. The series earned two Emmys and a Peabody Award, and it has since been broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 500 million viewers. To complement the series, a book was also published. It is still the most widely watched PBS series in the country as of 2009. Several updated versions of the series were later broadcast; one version, telecast after Sagan's death, opens with Druyan mentioning her late husband and Cosmos' impact over the years.

Druyan wrote and produced the 1987 PBS NOVA episode "Confessions of a Weapon," about President Eisenhower's Science Advisor George Kistiakowsky.

Druyan co-wrote Passport to the Universe in 2000, the inaugural planetarium exhibit for the Rose Center for Earth and Space at the American Natural History Museum's Hayden Planetarium. Tom Hanks leads the attraction. The search for Life: Are We Alone, directed by Harrison Ford, which also premiered at the Hayden's Rose Center, was co-written by Druyan and Soter.

Druyan co-founded Cosmos Studios, Inc. with Joseph Firmage in 2000. Druyan, the CEO of Cosmos Studios, creates science-based entertainment for all media. Cosmos Studios has produced Cosmic Africa, Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt, and Cosmic Journey: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. In 2009, she launched At Home in the Cosmos, a podcast in which she detailed her professions, Carl Sagan's life, and their marriage.

Druyan is co-creator and co-producer of the 1997 film Contact, co-creator and co-producer of Carl Sagan.

In 2011, it was announced that Druyan would executive produce, co-write, and be one of the episodic editors for Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, a Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which premiered in March 2014. On the night, Episodes premiered on Fox and then aired on National Geographic Channel, as the following night. Fox gave the series the most global rollout of a television series ever at the time of its introduction, debuting it in 180 countries. In an "roadblock" style premiere, nine of Fox's cable television properties were shown in comparison to the broadcast network in a "roadblock" style premiere. The series went on to become the most watched series for National Geographic Channel International International, with at least a portion of the 13-episode series watched by 135 million people, including 45 million in the United States.

Cosmos: The Future Worlds, a third season of Cosmos, for which Druyan was executive producer, writer, and director, premiered on National Geographic in March 2020. "I have season four in mind, and I know what it will be like," Druyan continued. And I even know some of the stories that I want to tell in it.

A Famous Broken Heart, Druyan's first book, was released in 1977.

Druyan co-wrote six New York Times best-sellers with Carl Sagan, including Comet, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, and The Demon-Haunted World. She co-authored Murmurs Of Earth: The Voyager Interstellar Record, along with Carl Sagan, F. D. Drake, Timothy Ferris, Jon Lomberg, and Linda Salzman Sagan. She also wrote the updated introduction to Sagan's book The Cosmic Connection and Billions and Billions' Epilogue. She wrote the introduction to and edited The Varieties of Scientific Experience, which were based on Sagan's 1985 Gifford lectures.

Druyan published Cosmos: Potential Worlds, a companion volume to the television series of the same name that premiered in March 2020, in February 2020.

Druyan is a member of the The Paranormal Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims was founded by Dr. John Polanyan.

Druyan was program director of the first solar-sail deep space mission, Cosmos 1, which was launched on a Russian ICBM in 2005.

Druyan is involved in several Breakthrough Initiatives. Druyan, Frank Drake, is the co-chair of Breakthrough Message and also a member of Breakthrough Starshot.

She is a member of The Carl Sagan Institute's advisory board.

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Awards

• 2004 Richard Dawkins Award
• 2014 Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Programming Primetime Emmy Award
• 2015 The Award for Outstanding Producer of Non-Fiction Television from Producers Guild of America
• 2015 Writers Guild Award for "Documentary Script – Other than Current Events"
• 2017 Harvard Humanist of the Year Award
• 2020 National Geographic Further Award