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Goddard Space Flight Center Engineering Colloquium

Date: Wednesday, October 1, 1997

Innovation and Change

Speaker: James Burke

Speaker

James Burke is an award-winning and highly acclaimed film-maker, author, host and teacher. He was born in Londonderry, Northern Ireland and received a Master of Arts degree at Oxford University. Afterwards, Mr. Burke spent five years in Italy teaching at the University of Bologna and at the University of Urbano and teaching and directing the English schools in Bologna and Rome. He also worked on a major English-Italian dictionary (Zanichelli) and edited sections of the Wiedenfield and Nicholson Encyclopedia of World Art. Mr. Burke made his television debut in 1965 as a reporter to Granada Television's (UK) Rome Bureau. In 1966, Mr. Burke joined the BBC's weekly science show, Tomorrow's World. As the chief corres[pmdemt for all the American Apollo space missions, he received high public and critical recognition from a worldwide audience of over twelve million. In 1972, he branched off on his own to become the host of his own prime-time weekly science show, The Burke Special. This series (and Mr. Burke) were awarded a Royal Television Society Silver medal in 1972 and a Gold medal in 1973. From 1975-1976, Burke co-authored and co-hosted The Inventing of America, an NBC/BBC joint production for the US bicentennial. In 1979, Burke's most popular work, Connections, aired in the US on PBS and achieved the highest audience ever for a documentary series in the US. The companion book (in both hardback and paperback) was a bestseller in the US as well as the UK. The series is also part of the curriculum at over 350 colleges and universities in the US.


Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Eugene Waluschka


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