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Dr Karl
A favourite in Australian science
Dr Karl Kruszelnicki is a qualified scientist, doctor and engineer whose fun-loving personality and gift for storytelling led him to become a well-known author and science communicator.
In addition to his degrees in Physics and Mathematics, Biomedical Engineering, and Medicine and Surgery, he has studied several non-degree years at various universities in Astrophysics, Computer Science and Philosophy.
He has worked as a physicist, labourer, roadie for bands, car mechanic, filmmaker, biomedical engineer (when he designed and built a machine to pick up electrical signals from the human retina), TV weatherman, science reporter, and medical doctor at The Children’s Hospital in Sydney.
Dr Karl has won several prestigious and unique awards throughout his career. In August 2000 he was one of the first eight Australian Apple Masters to be announced (there are fewer than 100 in the entire world). The Apple Masters Program celebrates the achievements of people who are changing the world through their passion and vision, while inspiring new approaches to creative thinking.
In 2002, Dr Karl was honoured with the prestigious Ig Nobel prize awarded by Harvard University in the USA for his ground-breaking research into Belly Button Lint and why it is almost always blue.
In 2003, Dr Karl was bestowed with the great honour of being named ‘Australian Father of the Year’. He also received the Member of the Order of Australia Award in 2006. In 2007 the Australia Skeptics Society awarded Dr Karl the Australia Skeptic Of The Year Prize.
In 2012 Karl was delighted to have Asteroid 18412 named after him. Asteroid Dr Karl/18412 was discovered by Robert H. McNaught at the Siding Spring Observatory in Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia, on June 13, 1993. In 2012 he was named as a National Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia (NSW).
In 2016 Dr Karl was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of the Sunshine Coast. In 2019 The United Nations awarded Dr Karl the UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularisation of Science.
In 2024 Dr Karl was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Newcastle and a Bellagio Center residency from The Rockefeller Foundation to develop a strategy using AI to counter climate change disinformation.
In the media, Karl was a writer and presenter for the first series of ‘Quantum’ and has been a science commentator on TV ever since. In radio, he speaks on-air for about five hours every week. This includes a national weekly, one-hour science talkback show on Triple J which in the five capital cities alone attracts over 750,000 listeners, while the podcast downloads are over 6 million.
He produces a weekly University of Sydney podcast ‘Shirtloads of Science’ featuring fellow academics talking about their latest research. Dr Karl is a patron for the University of Sydney Sleek Geeks Eureka Schools Prize which encourages students to communicate a scientific concept in a way that is accessible and entertaining. It is intended to support budding young scientists across the nation, who will be our future leaders in research, discovery and communication. Karl offers free, online school science Q&As twice a week.
Karl has written 48 books with more on the way. Karl speaks at secondary and tertiary institutions, festivals, and corporate events.
His hobbies include travelling through the outback, family fun, fitness, music, dancing a lot, and writing for 4WD magazines.
Book in a Dr Karl talk
Why not catch Dr Karl's "Great Moments in Science'' talk during your next University of Sydney tour. Excellent for motivating students about science!
To make a booking for your class, contact:
Science Alliance
Phone: (02) 9114 0825
Fax: (02) 9351 7707
Email: science.alliance@sydney.edu.au
Alternatively, if you can't get to Sydney, class beams into classrooms across the world. You can book in for an online science Q&A here.