Geek Stars From Atkinson to Zappa

Ian Lamont writes "You probably remember reading about Brian May getting a PhD in Astrophysics, but may not know about the many other celebrities from the music, TV, and film worlds who have studied science and technology in college and grad school, or are simply serious gearheads who like gadgets, games, and other geek pastimes. Computerworld has identified about 50 celebrities who fit the bill, including Dan Grimaldi (Patsy Parisi, The Sopranos) who has a Bachelor of Arts degree in math, a master's in operations research and a Ph.D. in data processing; Rowan Atkinson, who has a master's in electrical engineering from Queen's College, Oxford; and Todd Rundgren, who developed an early paint program called Utopia. Other folks on the list: Dr. Demento, Montel Williams, Natalie Portman, Curt Schilling, and Huey Lewis."

Also expert driver

[threaded]

Rowan Atkinson also holds higher levels of British Driving license allowing him to drive HGVs aka articulated trucks on the highways. I'm told he performs many of the car stunts in the shows himself.

Thomas Dolby spoke at the Be Developer's Conf.

[MichaelCrawford]

He and I were both BeOS developers back in the day.

His real last name isn't Dolby, it's Robertson [wikipedia.org].

When he spoke at the BDC, it was about his high-tech startup [wikipedia.org], which developed a new audio format.

He got sued by the Dolby corporation; according to Wikipedia, the settlement allows him to use their trademark only when in the context of "Thomas ".

Re:Psychology == Geek?

[amRadioHed]

The fact that she knows 6+ languages qualifies as geeky in my book. That's an impressive intellectual accomplishment, no two ways about it.

Dr. Demento's Thesis

[vertigoCiel]

Here at Reed College (Dr. Demento's alma mater), finding Dr. Demento's senior thesis in the Thesis Tower is a common scavenger hunt item. While the topic (the operas Wozzeck and Pelleas et Melisande) isn't traditionally nerdy, no one can get through Reed without being a little bit geeky.

Re:A Bachelor of *arts* in Mathematics?

[itsdapead]

How does that work?

Quoth Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

Traditionally the term art was used to refer to any skill or mastery, a concept which altered during the Romantic period, when art came to be seen as "a special faculty of the human mind to be classified with religion and science".

The "Bachelor of Science" (BSc) is a relatively recent invention by modern universities. "Modern" in this context means "Not already 600 years old when those Romantic trendies re-wrote the dictionary". Certainly the University of Oxford (est. 1069 give or take a few decades) doesn't have any truck with this sort of newspeak and awards BA for everything.

From Asia's Bio...

[ConanG]

This comes directly from her bio: http://www.asiacarrera.com/bio.html [asiacarrera.com]

Geeky Academic Stuff - NJ spelling champ, National Mathematics League, Spanish National Honor Society, placed in National Geography, Language Arts, and Mathematics Olympiads.

Geeky Other Stuff - Played classical piano at Carnegie Hall at 13 & 14 (Ernesto Lecuona's 'Malaguena' and Bach's 13th Invention), taught Colloquial English at Tsuruga College in Japan at 16

Education - Attended performing arts high school (emphasis on instrumental music and visual arts), National Merit Scholarship Winner (for 1440 on SAT's), and Garden State Scholar (for nerdly grades). Attended Rutgers University on full academic scholarship, with a double-major in Business and Japanese.

Re:Um, Dr. Demento *not* on the list

[puto]

You are correct sir. I have an three original Lehrer records on vinyl that my dad gave me in 78, i was 8 years old. Harvard professor, political satirist, pianist.

http://members.aol.com/quentncree/lehrer/

Check the above for his lyrics.

puto

Dexter Holland, lead singer of The Offspring

[bajan_on_ice]

Dexter Holland, lead singer of the the band "The Offspring" has a Bachelor's degree in Biology and a Master's degree in Molecular Biology, both from the University of Southern California. He is also a PhD candidate in Molecular Biology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dexter_Holland [wikipedia.org]

Actually, geekier than it sounds.

[porcupine8]

After discovering that she published her papers under her birth name of Hershlag (urg, no wonder she took a stage name), I found one of them on Google Scholar:

Frontal Lobe Activation during Object Permanence: Data from Near-Infrared Spectroscopy [66.102.1.104]

Definitely geekier than your average psych paper.

And it appears that her other paper, on which she was first author while in high school, was actually in chemistry:

A Simple Method To Demonstrate the Enzymatic Production of Hydrogen from Sugar [wisc.edu]

Though it's actually in a chemistry education journal, and appears to maybe have something to do with doing demonstrations in chemistry classrooms.