Ann Druyan (the surname is pronounced "Dreen") (b. June 13, 1949) is an author and media producer known for her involvement in many projects aiming to popularize and explain science. In her writings, Druyan has stressed the idea that people can have a sense of awe and wonder about the unity of the cosmos without introducing the concept of a god. Focusing on this sense of awe and wonder, it has been said that Druyan is a pantheist, though she has never described herself as being such.

Druyan wrote the books Comet and Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, as well as sections of The Demon-Haunted World, with her late husband Carl Sagan. In addition, she wrote an introduction to The Cosmic Connection and the epilogue to Thoughts on Life and Death at the End of the Millennium, both by Sagan. Alone, she wrote the novel A Famous Broken Heart.

In the areas of film and television, she was one of the writers for the television series A Personal Voyage, and a producer of the film Contact. Most recently, she is the CEO and a co-founder of Cosmos Studios. She also serves as President of the NORML Foundation Board of Directors.

Other projects that she has been involved in include the selection of the music on the record on the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 space probes, and the Cosmos 1 spacecraft which intended to demonstrate solar sail propulsion.

Quote

• I think the roots of this antagonism to science run very deep. They're ancient. We see them in Genesis, this first story, this founding myth of ours, in which the first humans are doomed and cursed eternally for asking a question, for partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. It's puzzling that Eden is synonymous with paradise when, if you think about it at all, it's more like a maximum-security prison with twenty-four hour surveillance. It's a horrible place. Adam and Eve have no childhood. They awaken full-grown. What is a human being without a childhood? Our long childhood is a critical feature of our species. It differentiates us, to a degree, from most other species. We take a longer time to mature. We depend upon these formative years and the social fabric to learn many of the things we need to know. --Ann Druyan Talks About Science, Religion, Wonder, Awe . . . and Carl Sagan

Awards

• 2004 Richard Dawkins Award

External links

• A Speech given by Ann Druyan at the 1997 annual convention of the Freedom From Religion Foundation
• Ann Druyan Talks About Science, Religion, Wonder, Awe . . . and Carl Sagan
• Cosmos Studios Charter

American science writers | American atheists | 1949 births | Living people

Ann Druyan