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Kari Elizabeth Byron (born December 18, 1974) is a San Francisco-based artist and television host, best known for her featured role on the Discovery Channel show MythBusters.
On the show MythBusters, Byron is featured along with fellow Build Team members Tory Belleci and Grant Imahara and also assists as co-hosts for Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman in testing the plausibility of various myths. She became involved in the show after persistently showing up at Hyneman's M5 Industries workshop in a desire to get hired at his company. On her first day as a paid employee, she was asked by Hyneman and MythBusters producer Peter Rees to help out with the "vacuum plane toilet" myth, and she was asked to model her buttocks for a cast. She was given a more prominent role in the show starting with its second season. Not having had a long history in show business, at first she found it hard to act naturally with this more visible position but gradually became more used to it.[2]
During the second half of the 2009 season, Byron was on parental leave from the show; her place on MythBusters was temporarily[3] occupied by Jessi Combs.[4]
Art and sculpting are important aspects of her life, and she has claimed that she creates some form of art every day, stating, "I would go crazy if I didn't." Some of her preferred sculpting materials are polymer clay, various found objects, acrylic gouache, wood and metals. Byron showcases some of her art on her personal website,[5] and photography from her public exhibit debut Stray Doll in September 2004 is available at Anno Domini.[6] She believes being an artist is a hard career to choose, but has found inspiration in artists such as various SECCA award winners in the past. Preferring to make her audience think, she has had the following to say about her art:
Following the success of MythBusters, she still makes sculptures, but she no longer displays them in exhibitions. She felt exposing her inner self through art exhibitions could conflict with the success of MythBusters, with visitors approaching her being more interested in talking about the show than her art. She has also expressed actually enjoying the freedom of working only for herself in this way.[7]
Byron graduated from Los Gatos High School and went on to study film and sculpture at San Francisco State University, graduating magna cum laude in May 1998 with a B.A. degree in Film and Sculpture.[5] Byron spent the following year backpacking (mostly in South Asia, including the Himalayas) and was also involved in a number of art projects. She also worked as a secret Martini shopper for a liquor company.[13]
Byron is a vegetarian, a fact referred to on occasion on MythBusters where she has been visibly uncomfortable when experiments have called for the use of animal remains.[14]
She is married to artist Paul Urich.[1] On February 25, 2009, it was announced that Byron was pregnant.[15][16][17] Her daughter, Stella Ruby, was born on June 28, 2009.[18][19]
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