Florida Atlantic University Honors the Youngest Graduate in Its History

Edie Stern, a distinguished engineer at IBM, received the Alumni Talon Award from the alumni association of Florida Atlantic University. She was honored for her lifetime of achievement and for the fact that she is the youngest person to have ever graduated from the university.

The daughter of a Holocaust survivor, Stern was a child prodigy. She began taking college courses at age 12 and received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Florida Atlantic University in 1968 at the age of 15. After earning a master’s degree at Michigan State University, she began a career of more than 40 years at IBM.

Stern has been issued 126 U.S. patents and in 2012 was honored with the Kate Gleason Award for lifetime achievement by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.