The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a New York-based, philanthropic institution that makes grants in research in science, technology, and economics; quality and diversity of scientific institutions; and public engagement with science. Sloan's program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology, directed by Doron Weber, supports books, radio, film, television, theater, and new media to reach a wide, non-specialized audience and to bridge the two cultures of science and the humanities.

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Over the past two decades, the Sloan Foundation has supported over 850 narrative film projects as well as over 100 documentaries, 200 books, and 350 theatrical productions to create more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology and to challenge existing stereotypes about scientists and engineers in the popular imagination.

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Sloan’s Film program supports annual awards in screenwriting and film production at top film schools nationwide and screenplay development programs with the Sundance Institute, Toronto International Film Festival, Film Independent, SFFILM, and others, The Foundation’s theater program commissions 20 science plays each year from the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, and the National Theatre in London, while supporting select productions across the country and abroad. The Sloan book program includes early support for Hidden Figures, the best-selling book that became the highest grossing Oscar-nominated film of 2017, and Kai Bird & Martin Sherwin’s Pulitzer Prize-winning American Prometheus, adapted for the screen in Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer. The Foundation was also an early funder of digital media, providing pioneering support for Radiolab and continues to support podcasts like Planet Money, Lost Women of Science, and Science Friday.

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For more information about the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, please visit www.sloan.org or follow the Public Understanding program at @SloanPublic on X, Instagram and Facebook.