Edith Stern facts for kids

Edith Helen Stern, born in 1952, is an amazing American inventor and mathematician. She used to be a Vice President for Research and Development at a big company called IBM. Edith is super smart and holds more than 100 US patents for her inventions! She also won a special award called the ASME Kate Gleason Award.

Edith was a child prodigy, which means she was incredibly talented and smart from a very young age. Her father taught her a lot, and she even read the Encyclopædia Britannica when she was only 5 years old! She was also the youngest person ever to graduate from Florida Atlantic University at the age of 15.

Early Life and Amazing Education

Edith Stern's father, Aaron Stern, believed that learning was super important. He wanted to help Edith become a genius. He spent a lot of time teaching her, even when she was a baby. He called his teaching method total education immersion.

Learning from a Young Age

Edith started communicating with flashcards before she could even talk. By 11 months old, she could show her age. She knew the alphabet by age two and was playing chess by age three! Her father bought a set of the Encyclopædia Britannica, which is a huge collection of books with lots of facts. Edith read them all by the time she was four.

She also visited museums and operas to learn about art and culture. To help her with math, she used a homemade abacus. Her father also taught her to be kind and understanding towards people from all different backgrounds. By age 5, it was said that Edith's IQ was 205, which is incredibly high! When she was 6, she had already read books by famous thinkers like Plato, Freud, and Darwin.

College and Beyond

Edith started college when she was just twelve years old. She earned a degree from Miami-Dade Junior College by age 15. In 1967, she earned her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Florida Atlantic University, becoming their youngest graduate ever. She was even part of the Florida Atlantic University Chess Team! Later, she went on to get her master's degree in mathematics from Michigan State University.

Her father wrote a book about how he raised her, called The Making of a Genius. He even gave talks at Stanford University about his ideas on education.

Career and Inventions

Before she turned twenty, Edith Stern taught mathematics at Michigan State University. In the early 1970s, she joined IBM as an intern. She worked her way up and eventually became a Vice President for research and development.

Innovations at IBM

At IBM, Edith worked on "real-time computing." This means making computers respond instantly, which is super important for many things we use every day. She helped create important features like direct dialing (where you can call someone directly without going through an operator) and last-call return (where you can dial back the last person who called you).

Edith also worked on health informatics for IBM Watson, which uses computers to help with healthcare. She was part of a team that won a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award! This award was for their work on digital commercials for the Warner Bros. Television network.

Awards and Special Honors

Edith Stern is an amazing inventor! She holds over 120 US patents, which means she has official rights to more than 120 of her inventions. She was the first woman to become a full member of the American Society Of Mechanical Engineers (ASME).

In 1998, IBM recognized her as a "master inventor." The next year, she was chosen for the IBM Academy of Technology. In 2012, she received the AMSE Kate Gleason Award. This award honored her for a lifetime of creating new technologies. In 2013, she also received the Florida Atlantic University Talon Award.

In 2015, a business magazine called Business Insider listed Edith Stern as one of the Smartest People of All Time!