IMPROBABLE RESEARCH Shows
Click here to see the current schedule of events
Want to make your audience laugh and think? Invite Marc Abrahams to be the keynote speaker at your next meeting or other at-risk-of-being-too-somber event.
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Marc Abrahams hosting the London show on the 2004 Ig Nobel Tour of the UK and Ireland. (Photo by Kees Moelicker.) |
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Marc is editor and co-founder of the Annals of Improbable Research, founder and master of ceremonies of the annual Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony at Harvard University, a weekly columnist for the British newspaper The Guardian, and author of several books.
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VIDEO: Watch one of Marc's talks -- Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 2006. (Click on the picture) |
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Whatever your audience -- scientific, medical, engineering, business, or very much none of the above -- Marc will combine science and humor (yes, they can be combined) in a way they will understand and maybe even love.
With deadpan commentary and improbably stunning images, Marc's talks typically delve into the Ig Nobel Prizes and Improbable Research from all branches of science, medicine, technology and elsewhere
CONTACT: The Annals of Improbable Research, telephone (+1) 617-491-4437, email air@improbable.com.
Your audience will laugh, and then think. (Disclaimer: What they think is up to them.)
Annual Events
Three special Improbable Research shows have become annual events:
OCTOBER: The Ig
Nobel Prize Ceremony at Harvard, and the Ig Informal Lectures
at MIT.
[A tradition since 1991]
FEBRUARY:A special Improbable Research
show is a featured evening event at the American Association for the Advancement
of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting.
[A tradition since 1995]
Last night, I attended an event hosted by AIR for AAAS meeting attendees. It’s a decade-plus tradition of noting selections from previous years. Only attendees who got to the room early got seats, but that didn’t deter people from lining the walls or plopping down on the floor for the duration of the laugh-out-loud event. [Chemical & Engineering News, Feb 2006]
MARCH: Ig
Nobel Tour of the UK for the UK’s National Science Week.
[Begun in 2003]
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At the Dublin event on the 2004 Ig Nobel Tour of the UK and Ireland. Photo: Kees Moeliker. |
There have also been Improbable Research tours of Australia for Australia (in 2004, 2005, and 2007) and elsewhere.
COMING: in May/June 2008,
a new annual Improbable Research Tour of Europe will begin.
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Marc Abrahams (second from right) the day after the August, 2004 show at the University of Tasmania. (Photo: Wayne Goninon) |
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Some Past and Upcoming Shows
UNIVERSITIES AND SCHOOLS -- Stanford, Caltech, Michigan Tech, Oxford, Marist College, U. Toronto, Oxford U., Cambridge U. Carnegie Mellon, MIT, U. Washington, Washington U., Harvard, Columbia, U. New Mexico, Dartmouth, St. Cloud State University, Cornell, U. Cincinnati, U. Maryland, Coast Guard Academy, Drexel, Columbia, UCLA, Manchester University, Exeter U., New Mexico Tech, Smith College, Bryn Mawr, U. Illinois, U. Cardiff, Williams College, Nottingham U., Nottingham Trent U., U. Tasmania, Princeton, U. Exeter, Curtin University of Technology, U of Portsmouth, Simmons College, Imperial College London, U. Michigan, Michigan Tech, Wayne State U., U. Texas, Texas A&M, U. Illinois, U.C. Berkeley, U. St. Andrews, U.C. San Diego,...
MEDICAL & OTHER RESEARCH INSTITUTIONS -- NIH, NSF, NIST, NASA, Scripps, Massachusetts Medical Society, Fox-Chase Cancer Center, Perimeter Institute, The Forsyth Institute, Harvard Medical School, Cold Spring Harbor Lab, National Science Foundation, Naval Research Lab, Wright-Patterson AFB, MBL/BUMP Woods Hole, Los Alamos National Lab, ...
SOCIETIES & MEETINGS -- American Association for the Advancement of Science, British Association for the Advancement of Science, Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, EuroScience, American Astronomical Society, American Chemical Society, Procter & Gamble, SWINY, Sigma Xi, International Electron Devices Meeting, Women in Science and Engineering, FOLIO Conference, Society Of Automotive Engineers, MENSA, PINC Conference [The Netherlands], Bessensap [The Netherlands], Genetics Momentum Conference [The Netherlands], BIOCAP Canada, Intersociety Polymer Conference, Northeast Assn. for Institutional Research, Chemical Institute of Canada, Western Psychology Assn. / Rocky Mountain Psychology Assn. Joint Convention, MIT Alumni Clubs, ACUBE, Bay Area Skeptics, Nanotech Initiative Conference, Embedded Systems Conference, City Club of San Diego, Council of Presidents of Scientific Societies, American Vacuum Society, BOSKONE, Cascadiacon, Massachusetts Medical Society, Alpbach Technology Forum (Austria),...
MUSEUMS & LIBRARIES -- Exploratorium, Library of Congress, Science Discovery Museum, Franklin Institute, Boston Museum of Science, Rochester Museum & Science Center, ...
OTHER -- DNA 50th Anniversary Celebration (Washington,
D.C.), The Hay Festival (Hay-on-Wye, Wales), Genoa Science Festival, Cambridge
(UK) Science Festival, Los Angeles Science Fiction Society, Siemens "Get
Inside",
National Writer's Workshop, Cornelia Street Café (NYC),...
Click here to watch an interview with Marc on WGBH-TV's "Thinking Big" program
About Marc Abrahams
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VIDEO: Watch one of Marc's talks -- Boston, Massachusetts, April 2005. (Click on the picture) |
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Marc Abrahams is editor and co-founder of the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR) and its web site, www.improbable.com. He writes about research that makes people LAUGH, and then THINK.
Marc is the father and master of ceremonies of the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony, honoring achievements that make people LAUGH, and then make THINK. The Prizes are handed out by genuine Nobel Laureates at a gala ceremony held each October at Harvard University and broadcast on National Public Radio and on the Internet.
The Washington Post called Marc "the nation's guru of academic grunge." The Journal of the American Medical Association called him "the Puck of Science." He has been called many other things.
In addition to editing the magazine, Marc writes a monthly newsletter called mini-AIR, a weekly column for the British newspaper The Guardian, and a daily blog.
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Marc Abrahams. (Photo by Roger Gordy.) |
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The magazine's editorial board of more than 50 distinguished scientists includes nine Nobel Laureates, IQ record holder Marilyn Vos Savant, and a convicted felon.
Marc also writes for other publications, on science, technology, medicine, and other topics. He has been a regular columnist for The Harvard Business Review, the German science magazine Zeitwissen, the technology magazine Embedded Systems Design, and the engineering magazine Design News, and was the back-page humor columnist for the late, lamented computer magazine Byte. He has also been a commentator for ABC-TV's World News Now and on public radio.
Marc is author of the books The Man Who Cloned Himself, Why Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans and The Ig Nobel Prizes. He edited (and wrote much of) the science humor anthologies The Best of Annals of Improbable Research and Sex As a Heap of Malfunctioning Rubble (and other improbabilities). These also appear in numerous translations (of which his favorite is Der Einfluss von Erdnussbutter auf die Erdrotation).
From 1990-1994, Marc was the editor of the Journal of Irreproducible Results. In 1994, after the magazine's publisher decided to abandon the magazine, the founders and entire editorial staff (1955-1994) of the Journal abandoned the publisher, and immediately created AIR.
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VIDEO: Watch a WGBH-TV interview -- Lisa Mullins and Marc in 2005. (Click on the picture) |
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He also frequently performs lectures that show both the funny side AND the importance of science, medicine, and technology. (Among these events: a series of live shows for National Science Week in the U.K.; a series of shows for Australia's National Science Week; and a large show at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.)
Marc has a degree in applied mathematics from Harvard College, spent several years developing optical character recognition computer systems (including a reading machine for the blind) at Kurzweil Computer Products, and later founded Wisdom Simulators, a creator of educational software.
He is married to psychologist Robin Abrahams, who writes the "Miss Conduct" advice column for the Boston Globe Magazine.
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