The Smartest Woman Ever Is a Spartan, and They Don’t Know It

Edith Stern is one of the most remarkable women in history. She was born in 1952 and was raised from birth to be a genius by her father. It was a bizarre and intense experiment, but it worked. He made her read the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica by age 4. She was reading Plato and Darwin at age 6. She had an IQ of 205. She was most certainly a genius.

Edith became famous in 1968 when she came to Michigan State University to work on her master’s degree and teach mathematics.

She was 15.

Every newspaper in the country ran the story about the 15-year-old college math professor. She earned her master’s degree at MSU and then started working on her doctorate there, but left before earning the degree because IBM offered her a ton of money to come work for them right away. She was only 20.

Edith Stern’s story gets even more remarkable from there. She went on to register more than 100 patents, and she’s the one who invented a couple of telephone innovations: direct-dialing and last-call return. Anybody who uses a phone these days is using some piece of technology that Edith helped invent.

Here’s the topper. A lot of publications and websites through the years have compiled lists of “The Smartest People of All Time,” and on almost every one of those lists, Edith Stern and her 205 IQ rank toward the very top.

On one such list, Edith Stern is even ranked as the Smartest Woman Who Ever Lived, ahead of Marie Curie and the Greek philosopher Hypatia.

One might think that Michigan State University would be extremely proud of the fact that an MSU grad and former instructor is considered the Smartest Woman Who Ever Lived, but from what I can tell, Michigan State University has no clue about this.

A cursory check of MSU’s websites, alumni sites, social media pages, and even Wikipedia entries shows no mention whatsoever of Edith Stern. Nothing. How could Edith Stern, one of its most accomplished and remarkable graduates, have slipped through MSU’s fingers?

She’s still around and active. She and her husband are big in the science fiction world, and she hosts a podcast. She’s pretty easy to find. I’m guessing the Smartest Woman Who Ever Lived would be happy to come to back to East Lansing sometime to speak at her alma mater.

As we wait for her alma mater to update its websites, here’s the remarkable, incredible, and apparently untold story of Edith Helen Stern.

She was born in 1952 to Aaron and Bella Stern in Brooklyn., N.Y., and grew up in Miami. Aaron was a German Jew and Holocaust survivor who had escaped from a concentration camp. Bella was Polish, and they met at the University of Warsaw before moving to the U.S. and settling in South Florida.

Aaron had become sick and disabled during his time at the concentration camp and wasn’t able to work, so Bella supported the family by working at a bakery. When Edith was born in 1952, Aaron was a stay-at-home dad who decided that he was going to spend all his time making his daughter a genius—just to prove he could.

He decided that he was going to subject his daughter to an intense regimen of academic rigor before she could walk or talk. Every waking moment would be spent on turning her into a genius. He called it the Total Educational Submersion Method. Bella wasn’t happy about it, but Aaron didn’t care.

“When we brought Edith home from the hospital nursery, I at once exposed her to 24-hour-a-day classical music,” he said. “At six weeks, I talked to her as I talk to you. I had travel posters on the wall. I challenged her at all times.”

Like his genius daughter, Aaron himself became famous and was likely the inspiration for the Rick Moranis character in the movie “Parenthood,” a dad who obsessively forces his toddler daughter to do math flashcards and read classic Greek novels.

It was a massive experiment with his daughter as the subject, and to his dying day, Aaron never felt an ounce of regret. To the contrary, he was doing it to glorify himself more than anything. He later wrote several books about it, including one called “The Making of a Genius.”

In it, he wrote, “I did not plan that Edith should be a normal child. Rather, I publicly stated that I shall make her a superior human being.”

And, well, it worked. Whether Edith Stern was born a genius or whether Aaron made her a genius, she was most certainly a genius. Her IQ was tested and she scored a 205, and then she graduated from Florida Atlantic University when she was 15. That’s when she came to Michigan State.

“Edith decided to come to MSU after graduation from Florida Atlantic University because she learned the school had an excellent reputation in mathematics and because the school offered her a graduate assistantship to help pay costs,” the Associated Press reported in 1968.

She signed the contract with MSU when she was 15 and started teaching undergrads that fall right after she turned 16.

Edith spent four years at Michigan State, earning her master’s degree in just over a year and then working on her doctorate. In 1972, though, IBM came calling and offered her a job as a systems analyst back in Florida. She was only a doctoral thesis shy of her PhD but left school anyway.

For those who might assume that Edith Stern turned out to be an odd duck at MSU—given her upbringing and status as a 16-year-old professor—that doesn’t seem to be the case. All the newspaper articles from her MSU days paint her as a pretty typical teenager in every other respect. She listened to rock music, dated boys, and wore mod clothing. She loved watching “Star Trek” and reading Spiderman comic books. Probably went to a few football games at Spartan Stadium, too.

After leaving Michigan State in 1972, Edith mostly slipped out of the public eye, although a newspaper would track her down from time to time for one of those “Whatever happened to …” articles.

She got married to a man named Joe Siclari, and they had a little boy named Danny in 1979. He had a normal upbringing, in case you’re wondering. “I cannot raise my son exactly as I was raised because I am not at home,” she said when he was 3. “When we are together, I try to keep a running monolog and answer all his questions.”

Edith Stern started calling herself Edie Stern and enjoyed a 42-year career at IBM, inventing dozens of things, mostly in telecommunications, and earning more than 100 patents. Her LinkedIn page shows she was honored in 2013 by Florida Atlantic University as a distinguished alum, but again, nothing from Michigan State.

In 2012, she was given the prestigious Kate Gleason Award by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, given for lifetime achievement.

She’s working now as the Vice President of Offerings and Intellectual Property for Amicus Brain, a company that seeks solutions in dementia care.

Edie and her husband Joe are also big in the world of science fiction fandom, and they frequently pop up at conventions across the country. In every way, she seems like she’s living a happy, well-adjusted, productive life.

She rarely pops up in the public eye the way she once did, but every online biography, LinkedIn profile and everything else has Edie noting that she’s a graduate of Michigan State University. She seems quite proud of her green and white diploma.

It’s time for Michigan State University to return the love. The Smartest Woman Who Ever Lived is one of yours, MSU. It’s time to start promoting that fact.

This year’s Mathematics Department commencement takes place on May 1 at the Breslin Center. If they don’t have a graduation speaker lined up yet, maybe this would be a good place to start.

We’d love to see you back on the banks of the Red Cedar, Edie. The place hasn’t changed a bit.