Screening

About Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story

Year Released:

2017

Genres:

Documentary

Metadata:

Directed by Alexandra Dean

This screening is sold out. There are no more tickets available. We will not have a standby line for this sold-out, paid screening.
The film will be followed by a post-screening discussion moderated by Center of Excellence for Women in Technology Advisory Council Chair and IU First Lady Laurie Burns McRobbie. The panel will include representatives from Center of Excellence for Women in Technology, Women in STEM LLC, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, and the Office of Science Outreach.

Fifth Annual National Evening of Science on Screen. Hollywood star Hedy Lamarr (Ziegfeld Girl, Samson and Delilah) was known as the world’s most beautiful woman—Snow White and Cat Woman were both based on her iconic look. Seen by many as just another pretty face, Hedy’s true legacy is that of a technological trailblazer. She was an Austrian Jewish émigré who invented a covert communication system to help defeat the Nazis; she gave her patent to the Navy, but was ignored and told to sell kisses for war bonds instead. Her pioneering work helped revolutionize modern communication, but it was only towards the very end of her life that tech pioneers discovered her concept, now used as the basis for secure Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. Hedy never publicly talked about her life as an inventor, but in 2016, director Alexandra Dean and producer Adam Haggiag unearthed four never-before-heard audio tapes of Hedy speaking on the record about her incredible life. Combining this newly discovered interview with intimate reflections from her children, closest friends, family, and admirers, Bombshell finally gives Hedy Lamarr the chance to tell her own story. (2K DCP Presentation)

The post-film panel discussion members include: As IU’s 18th First Lady, Laurie Burns McRobbie champions the philanthropic spirit among IU’s alumni with a particular focus on the growing importance of women’s philanthropy. Laurie is a founder of the Women’s Philanthropy Leadership Council at the Indiana University Foundation and serves as its honorary chair. A technologist in higher education for more than 25 years, she served in numerous management and executive positions at the University of Michigan and as an executive director with Internet2. She helped found and lead Internet2’s Gender Diversity Initiative, which has sponsored scholarships and travel grants for women technologists and network engineers, as well as a major survey of gender diversity in employment. Laurie holds an adjunct faculty position in IU’s School of Informatics and Computing, where she helped found the ServeIT service-learning clinic. She played a crucial role in the establishment of the Indiana University Center of Excellence for Women in Technology (CEWiT) at IUB, which seeks to create, foster, and improve academic and professional opportunities for women students, faculty, and staff working in or with technology.

Sharlene Newman is a cognitive neuroscientist in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Indiana University and the programs in Cognitive Science and Neuroscience. She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. at the University of Alabama Birmingham in biomedical engineering and her B.E. at Vanderbilt University in electrical engineering and mathematics. Sharlene transitioned to the field of cognitive neuroscience while a postdoc at Carnegie Mellon University. In July of 2013 she was appointed director of the IU Imaging Research Facility, and, in January 2016, she became an Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education.  ​

Teddie Phillipson-Mower is the Associate Director of the College of Arts and Sciences Office of Science Outreach. As a science and environmental educator and communicator, she is committed to the expansion of underrepresented groups in STEM as well as issues of equality within these fields. Our ability to solve the formidable problems we face as a species rely on diversity of thought and perspective. Teddie received a MAT in Biology and an EdS in science and environmental education from IUB. Her research is on the relationship between intellectual and ethical development and the nature of science as students experience undergraduate science research. She was on faculty at the University of Louisville where she ran the environmental education master’s degree and certification programs, was the Director for the Center for Environmental Education, and helped found the Louisville Timebank and the Bluegrass Bioneers. Happy to be back in Bloomington, Teddie currently serves as a commissioner on the Bloomington Commission for Sustainability and grows citrus.

Maria del Valla Coello is an Indiana University undergraduate student studying physics and astrophysics with plans to attend graduate school and continue the hunt for new and exciting physics. On campus she works with the Tayloe lab on neutrino physics and with Dr. Eileen Friel on star cluster surveys. Outside of strictly academics, she is involved with the Concerned Scientists at IU group, which promotes scientific research and evidence-based decision-making for all levels of governance.