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 has created many new things, holding over 100 US patents! She also won a special award called the ASME Kate Gleason Award. Edith was a true child prodigy, which means she was super smart from a very young age. For example, she 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 just 15 years old.

Early Life and Amazing Learning

Edith's father, Aaron Stern, was a scholar. He had faced very difficult times during a big war. He married Edith's mother, Bella, in Warsaw. Aaron Stern wanted his daughter to love learning and become an academic. He called his special way of teaching total education immersion.

Edith started learning super early. Before she could even talk, she used flashcards to share messages. When she was just 11 months old, she could show her age with them! By age two, she knew the alphabet. At three, she was already playing chess. She learned math using a homemade abacus. Her parents also taught her to be kind and understanding towards everyone.

Even though her father didn't like IQ tests, people said Edith's IQ was 205 when she was 5. By age 6, she had read books by famous thinkers like Plato, Freud, and Darwin.

Edith started college when she was twelve. She earned a degree from Miami-Dade Junior College by age 15. In 1967, she got her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Florida Atlantic University. She was the youngest person to graduate from there. Edith was even part of the Florida Atlantic University Chess Team. Later, she earned a master's degree in mathematics from Michigan State University.

Her father called raising Edith "the Edith project." He wrote a book about her childhood called The Making of a Genius. He also gave talks at Stanford University about his ideas on education. Being so famous from a young age was sometimes hard for her family.

Her Career and Inventions

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

At IBM, Edith worked on computers that needed to react very quickly, known as real-time computing. She helped create important technologies we use today. These include direct dialing (where you can call someone directly without an operator) and last-call return (where you can dial a code to call back the last person who called you).

Edith also worked on health informatics for IBM Watson. This means she helped use computer science to improve healthcare. She was part of a team that won a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award. They won for their work on making digital commercials for the Warner Bros. Television network.

Awards and Special Recognitions

Edith Stern is an amazing inventor! She holds over 120 US patents. This 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 named her a "master inventor." The next year, she was chosen for the IBM Academy of Technology.

In 2012, Edith 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, Business Insider magazine listed Edith Stern as one of the Smartest People of All Time.