The Sidwell Friends alum is awarded the nation’s highest civilian honor. 

Last week, President Joe Biden rang in the New Year by awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19 Americans, including Sidwell Friends’ own Bill Nye ’73. In a ceremony announcing Nye as “America’s science teacher,” Biden bestowed the nation’s highest civilian honor on the science educator and climate activist alongside 18 other luminaries, including Jane Goodall, Magic Johnson, Bono, Hillary Clinton, Ralph Lauren, and Michael J. Fox.

Nye’s wildly popular PBS children’s show, Bill Nye the Science Guy, was a 19-time Emmy winner and one of the most watched educational TV shows in the United States in the 1990s. Nye has also written two best-selling books, Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creation (2014) and Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World (2015); was featured in the documentary Bill Nye: Science Guy in 2017; and starred in two recent TV series for adults, Bill Nye Saves the World and The End Is Nye.

Early in his career, Nye was a mechanical engineer by day for Boeing, where he invented a hydraulic resonance suppressor tube used on 747 airplanes, and a stand-up comedian by night. Merging his passion for science and performance ultimately made him one of the most consequential voices for environmental stewardship around the world. Currently, he is the CEO of the Planetary Society, a nonprofit dedicated to research and public outreach for astronomy, space exploration, and planetary science. 

Photo by Tom Brenner