Celebrities Who Have Contributed to Science, Engineering, and Teaching

Nov. 30, 2023

A surprising number of celebrities have more to offer than talent and pretty faces.

Dolph Lundgren

Dolph Lundgren should be known for his impressive academic achievements over his movie accolades, rather than the other way around. While we may always think of him as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV, his real life isn’t as notable, but it ought to be.

After graduating high school in Nyland, Angermanland (Sweeden), Dolph left for the U.S. in the 1970s on various academic scholarships, studying chemical engineering at Washington State University and Clemson University. As the ’70s came to a close, Lundgren attended the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and graduated in the early ’80s with a degree in chemical engineering.

In 1983, Dolph was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to MIT but held off. He held off, though, because he was working as a bouncer at a nightclub in Sydney, Australia, where he met Grace Jones, who hired him as a bodyguard. In a 2008 Maxim interview, Dolph stated he skipped MIT in favor of acting. “I decided I didn't want to shake test tubes for the rest of my life. So I quit school and became an unemployed starving actor for a while."

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What you’ll learn:

Celebrities who have contributed to science.
Their educational backgrounds.
What they’re doing now.

Hollywood is filled with stars who have portrayed scientists, engineers, technologists and renowned mathematicians on the silver screen since movies were being made. We’ve been entertained by geologists and astronauts vying to save the planet on multiple occasions, scientists and researchers looking to enhance the human experience, and virologists trying to prevent zombie epidemics. The number of movies with inventive protagonists designing supersuits over the last decades has turned heads and piqued movie-goers' curiosity as to whether those actors and actresses have STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) backgrounds.

As strange as that might sound, the reality is some of them actually contributed to those fields and are supported by degrees garnered from college educations, either before or after making their screen debuts. While a majority of celebrities have made monetary contributions to higher education or other notable causes, we will focus on those who added to scientific knowledge in one field or another for the benefit of others.

These are just a few celebrities who have backgrounds in STEM education. There are many more who balance both entertainment careers and education, while others have abandoned their celebrity status to focus solely on their pursuit of knowledge. It seems most had dreams of becoming movie or rock stars but stayed grounded, knowing that those limelights were longshots and began studying for what could have been entirely different lives.

About the Author

Cabe Atwell | Technology Editor, Electronic Design

Cabe is a Technology Editor for Electronic Design.

Engineer, Machinist, Maker, Writer. A graduate Electrical Engineer actively plying his expertise in the industry and at his company, Gunhead. When not designing/building, he creates a steady torrent of projects and content in the media world. Many of his projects and articles are online at element14 & SolidSmack, industry-focused work at EETimes & EDN, and offbeat articles at Make Magazine. Currently, you can find him hosting webinars and contributing to Electronic Design and Machine Design.

Cabe is an electrical engineer, design consultant and author with 25 years’ experience. His most recent book is “Essential 555 IC: Design, Configure, and Create Clever Circuits”

Cabe writes the Engineering on Friday blog on Electronic Design.