Naren Shankar

The starting point of writer-producer-director Naren Shankar's career is a highly unusual and impressive one. He graduated from Cornell University with Ph.D degrees in engineering, phys and electrical engineering. That training sered him well in 1992, when he began writing episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," a series for which he also served as a science consultant. More "Star Trek" TV series and other small screen science-fiction work followed. But it was all, in hindsight, a prelude for a drama grounded in a very different, contemporary reality, the Jerry Bruckheimer shepherded mega-smash "C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation." Shankar has written over 40 episodes, acted as producer and, in 2009, made his debut via the program as a TV director. Somehow, in the middle of all this galactic and crime solving activity, the Cornell brainiac also found time and inspiration to script an episode of the Charlie Sheen sitcom "Two and a Half Men." That may be his most impressive trick of all.