The Big Bang Theory Scholarship Endowment is a new fund at UCLA for undergraduate students who want to take degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields (STEM subjects.) The new fund is supported by the Chuck Lorre Family Foundation (Chuck Lorre is the creator of the show) and some corporate sponsors.
Appropriately, given that UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles) is the place where successful applicants to the fund will be sent, the science consultant for The Big Bang Theory, David Saltzberg, is a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy. Saltzberg is currently involved with the Large Hadron Collider project at CERN, in Switzerland.
The new fund is the first time that the cast and crew of a television show have come together to create a university scholarship fund. To date the fund stands at $4 million. For those unfamiliar with the situation comedy, The Big Bang Theory is program that involves the day-to-day lives of a group of physicists, engineers, scientists, and their friends in Pasadena, California. Many of the characters work at Caltech, where NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is housed.
The fund is set to cover the costs of 20 students for the 2015-2016 academic intake. Assessment will be based on academic attainment and financial need. The successful applicants will be announced on one of the episodes of “The Big Bang Theory” to be transmitted during the autumn.
Showrunner Chuck Lorre told Controlled Environments magazine that: “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.”
He also added: “In that spirit, our Big Bang family has made a meaningful contribution, and together we’ll share in the support of these future scholars, scientists and leaders.”
