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.