| In 1983, Dr. Kirsch became the Executive Director of the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center located in San Diego’s beautiful Balboa Park. Under his leadership the institution has quadrupled its membership (to more than 12,000 families), doubled its physical size (in 1998 to 95,000 sq. ft.), and is recognized as a major contributor to the production and exhibition of IMAX® films in science museums. The Fleet’s education programs now reach 110,000 students per year and the Fleet has been awarded a number of prestigious Eisenhower grants from the State of California to train San Diego elementary and middle school teachers in inquiry-based methods for science education. |
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The Fleet has also launched an innovative early childhood education exhibition, Kid City. Dr. Kirsch is especially interested in educational environments that promote problem-solving skills, teamwork, lifelong learning, and the understanding of science by adults as well as children.
Dr. Kirsch represents the Fleet in the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership (BPCP), a new public benefit, not-for-profit organization he helped found in 2002. The BPCP seeks to help each institution achieve its full potential through collaborations with other Park institutions and to enhance the role of the Park as the City’s cultural center. He served as the BPCP representative of large institutions on the City’s Balboa Park Committee. Dr. Kirsch is Chairman of the Museum Film Network (MFN), an international association of 15 museums, which develops and sponsors high quality IMAX films for the worldwide community of giant screen theaters. He also is co-chair of the International Advisory Board of the global Association of Science and Technology Centers (ASTC) and is co-chair of the educational committee for ASTC’s International Global Warming Awareness (IGLO) program.
Dr. Kirsch is very interested in the transformation of science and science communications due to the advent of computer graphics and new digital techniques for immersive science visualization. He has helped produce computer animation festivals and is doing research on the utilization of digital media appropriate to science museums. On behalf of the Fleet he is consulting on a number of IMAX projects based on these new technologies, and is leading a Fleet task force on their application to giant, tilted dome screens (such as the Fleet’s Space Theater) that could revolutionize their utilization for education.
He has been Executive Producer for six IMAX productions, and consulting producer on six other IMAX films. He was honored to receive the 2001 Founders Award from the IMAX Corporation, which is given to individuals that have made a major contribution to the arts and sciences of 15/70 large format films. His films have received two Grand Prix for To The Limit and CHRONOS, and 2 Golden Eagles for RING OF FIRE andTHE DISCOVERERS. Current projects include consulting producer on DINOSAURS ALIVE! and GRAND CANYON ADVENTURE.
Dr. Kirsch's first career path was in the physical sciences, rocketry, and aerospace engineering, having received his undergraduate education at Princeton University (B.S.E. in 1962), his M.S.A.E. at the University of Southern California (1963), and his doctorate in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Southern California (1969). After ten years in aerospace research his deep interest in science communications led him into a career in public broadcasting as Executive Producer and Director of the KPBS-TV Science Center in San Diego. Over a nine-year period, Dr. Kirsch was responsible for science-oriented program production. He led efforts that resulted in national programming slots and a number of award-winning TV documentaries on subjects dealing with issues affecting relationship between Science and Society. |
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