Alan Alda needs no introduction. You just don’t need to introduce someone who has been a fixture on television for sixty-four years. He first appeared on The Phil Silvers Show in 1958, then slowly built a career in TV, movies, and TV movies, before landing what, for a lesser actor, would have been the role of a lifetime—playing the sardonic, seen-it-all military doctor Hawkeye Pierce on M*A*S*H. He played Hawkeye for eleven years and then just kept going, earning accolades for his roles on 30 Rock and Ray Donovan and as a politician on The West Wing.

Alda is a six-time winner of both the Emmy Award and the Golden Globe Award. He’s directed four movies; written three books, including the evocatively named If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face?; and spent over a decade hosting PBS’s Scientific American Frontiers. That last role turned out to be transitional for Alda, moving him into the position of science translator, breaking down complicated theories into easily digestible media for the masses. Building on that experience, in 2009 he helped create the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at New York’s Stony Brook University, with a mission to teach scientists, engineers, and medical professionals to communicate clearly and vividly. The phrase “clear and vivid” has become a sort of mantra for Alda’s latest chapter.