Stars To Gather In Silicon Valley To Celebrate Science At 5th Annual “Breakthrough Prize” Ceremony Sunday, December 4

Ceremony to Air Live at 10/9c on National Geographic Channel.

Morgan Freeman to Host and Alicia Keys to Perform; Jeremy Irons to Serve as Presenter in Mathematics Category.

FOX to Air One-Hour Version of Ceremony on Sunday, December 18, 7-8 PM ET/PT; National Geographic Channels International to Also Air One-Hour Version.

San Francisco – November 11, 2016 – The Breakthrough Prize will mark its fifth anniversary celebrating top achievements in the fields of physics, life sciences and mathematics, with a star-studded ceremony on Sunday, Dec. 4, at the NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley. The ceremony, to be broadcast live on National Geographic, will be hosted by Academy Award®-winning actor Morgan Freeman and will feature a special performance by 15-time Grammy®-winning singer, songwriter and producer Alicia Keys. The ceremony will be directed and produced, for the fourth time, by Don Mischer, alongside executive producers Charlie Haykel and Juliane Hare of Don Mischer Productions.

Academy Award® winner Jeremy Irons, recently seen in the biographical drama The Man Who Knew Infinity which has received accolades and talk of Oscar note, in the role of Cambridge mathematician G.H. Hardy, will serve as a presenter. He will recognize the accomplishments in the mathematics category.

“I am honored to be presenting this prestigious award,” said Irons. “Playing G.H. Hardy in The Man Who Knew Infinity was an eye-opening experience for me, introducing me as it did to the world of pure mathematics. Knowing that the Breakthrough Prize will open more doors in this field is heartwarming.”

The Breakthrough Prize ceremony is presented by co-founders Sergey Brin (Google) and Anne Wojcicki (23andMe), Yuri Milner (DST Global) and Julia Milner, and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Priscilla Chan (Chan Zuckerberg Initiatives), along with Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter.

In addition to broadcasting live in its entirety on National Geographic at 10/9c on Sunday, Dec. 4, an edited one-hour version of the ceremony will also air on FOX on Sunday, Dec. 18, at 7:00-8:00 PM ET/PT and globally on National Geographic in 171 countries and 45 languages.

Now in its fifth year, the Breakthrough Prize – Silicon Valley’s munificent science prize – honors paradigm-shifting research and discovery in the fields of fundamental physics, life sciences and mathematics. Across all categories for this year, the Breakthrough Prize Foundation will award $25 million to honor both outstanding career achievement and emerging talent. This year, a total of eight $3 million prizes will be awarded to 12 individuals. Additionally, another six $100,000 prizes will be awarded to 10 winners of the New Horizons in Physics and Mathematics Prizes. The ceremony will also recognize the winner of the second annual Breakthrough Junior Challenge for students, which will award $250,000 scholarship to a student whose original science video brings to life an important scientific or mathematical idea or principle. The science teacher who inspired the winning student will win $50,000. The winner’s school will also receive a state-of-the-art science lab valued at $100,000.

About Breakthrough Prize

For the fifth year, the Breakthrough Prizes will recognize the world’s top scientists. Each prize is $3 million and presented in the fields of Life Sciences (up to five per year), Fundamental Physics (up to one per year) and Mathematics (up to one per year). In addition, up to three New Horizons in Physics and up to three New Horizons in Mathematics Prizes are given out to junior researchers each year. Laureates attend a televised awards ceremony designed to celebrate their achievements and inspire the next generation of scientists. As part of the ceremony schedule, they also engage in a program of lectures and discussions. The Breakthrough Prizes were founded by Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, and Yuri and Julia Milner. Selection Committees composed of previous Breakthrough Prize laureates choose the winners.

Information on the Breakthrough Prizes is available at breakthroughprize.org.

About Don Mischer Productions

Don Mischer Productions (DMP) is an internationally acclaimed and universally respected production firm of television and live events. Led by Don Mischer and Charlie Haykel, along with Juliane Hare, DMP has consistently produced programs that share the best of the human experience, whether it be the work of our most acclaimed artists or the celebration of our most cherished monuments and greatest international events. They also always sit at the forefront of their craft, with an eye to innovate and advance the art form.

Some of their marquee productions include “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial”; “The Kennedy Center Honors”; an astonishing 14 Primetime Emmy Awards broadcasts; Super Bowl halftime shows (Prince, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen, among others); the Opening Ceremonies of both the Winter and Summer Olympic Games; and the 83rd, 84th and 85th Academy Awards. Other productions include the groundbreaking “Breakthrough Prize” and specials with Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Bono, Prince, Rihanna, Stevie Wonder and Barbara Streisand, among others.

For the Breakthrough Prize:

Rubenstein Communications, Inc.
Janet Wootten / 212-843-8024 / JWootten@Rubenstein.com
Kristen Bothwell / 212-843-9227 / KBothwell@Rubenstein.com
Emily Vicker / 212-843-8078 / EVicker@Rubenstein.com

For National Geographic:

Julie Frazier / 212-656-0714 / julie.frazier@natgeo.com
Stephanie Silva / 202-912-6721 / Stephanie.silva@natgeo.com

For Fox:

Jason Clark / 212-556-2434 / Jason.Clark@fox.com