CBS has found its female lead for its original series, Einstein, in Melissa Fumero (Brooklyn Nine-Nine). She will star opposite the previously announced Matthew Gray Gubler, who plays Albert Einstein’s great-grandson. The series joins CBS’s 2026-2027 broadcast season and begins production this month.
Fumero will play the character Teri, a Detective Inspector for the New Jersey State Police. Sharp and disciplined, Teri demands a lot from her colleagues and even more from herself, and feels conflicted about working with Professor Einstein.
Rosa Salazar was originally cast in the role. As Deadline reported in May, the actress approached the network and CBS Studios, which produces Einstein, after CBS’s decision to delay the series until the 2026-27 season, with a request not to pick up her option. (Einstein had been originally picked up to series for 2025-26 last week.) Salazar’s request has been granted, with the two sides parting ways by mutual agreement.
Einstein follows Lewis Einstein, the brilliant but directionless great-grandson of Albert Einstein (Gubler). He spends his days as a comfortably tenured professor until his bad-boy antics land him in trouble with the law, and he is pressed into service helping a local police detective (Fumero) solve her most puzzling cases.
Lewis is a popular professor at Princeton…when he actually shows up for class. Irreverent and misguided, his genius and famous name weigh heavily on him, but using his gift to help solve homicides may- finally- offer his life some direction and purpose.
Andy Breckman, Randy Zisk, Michael Rauch, Tariq Jalil, Rose Hughes, Rodrigo Herrera Ibarguengoytia and Laura Beetz executive produce Einstein. Gubler also serves as a Producer. CBS Studios is the studio.
Fumero is a SAG-nominated actor and director best known for playing Detective Amy Santiago in the Fox/NBC series Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Most recently, she played Birdie, a bougie new gardener caught up in a murder mystery, in NBC’s Gross Pointe Garden Society. She began her career with a recurring role as Adriana Cramer on ABC’s One Life to Live, and was featured in over 200 episodes. Additional TV credits include Netflix’s Blockbuster, NBC’s Good Girls, Netflix’s One Day at a Time, and ABC’s The Mentalist.
She will star in the upcoming thriller Red Dirt, a family revenge story currently in pre-production that follows two brothers who are reunited after years apart when their family is murdered. Fumero is repped by United Talent Agency and Corner Booth Entertainment.
