Big Bang Theory goes from fiction to fact with new scholarship

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Cast and crew have contributed to help needy students attend UCLA for math and science.
Cast and crew have contributed to help needy students attend UCLA for math and science.
Photo: Warner Bros. Television

Nerds and geeks alike are satirized and celebrated in CBS’s hit television show The Big Bang Theory, which has aired since 2007.

The very same intelligent kids that the show lionizes will now have a chance to study science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subjects at UCLA, thanks to a new endowmnent from show co-creator Chuck Lorre and some of the cast and crew of the show.

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. Maybe one of the recipients will become the next Steve Wozniak or Bill Gates.

“We have all been given a gift with ‘The Big Bang Theory,’ a show that’s not only based in the scientific community, but also enthusiastically supported by that same community. This is our opportunity to give back,” said executive producer Lorre in a statement.

Starting this fall, twenty students will get grants of varying amounts, each based on need and academic merit. Five more students at UCLA will be added to the endowment each year into perpetuity.

The Big Bang Theory Scholarship Endowment has pulled together $4 million thus far with donations from Lorre and stars Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco-Sweeting, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar, Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch, as well as Warner Bros. Television, CBS and other corporate partners.

Bialik herself has a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA for her dissertation on the hypothalamic activity in patients with Prader-Willi syndrome.

Source: LA Times

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