Samantha Malone
It’s astounding enough that Harvard University believes the world’s next Einstein is among us, but what makes it even more incredible is that the young woman is a Chicago native.
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Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski, 23, has already accomplished so much in the short time she has been in this world, but there is so much more to come as well. Pasterski, a Cuban-American born in Chicago, is already one of the most well-known and accomplished physicists in the U.S., according to Second Nexus.
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Currently a Ph.D. candidate at Harvard with full academic freedom, Pasterski graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in just three years with the highest possible grade point average, 5.0, but her notoriety came long before even these accomplishments.
It was in 2008 at age 14 that Pasterski began gaining attention when she single-handedly built her very own single-engine airplane and, two years later, flew it across Lake Michigan, becoming the youngest person ever to fly their own plane. She documented the process of building the plane on YouTube, shocking many and beginning her bigger journey.
“I couldn’t believe it,” recalls Peggy Udden, an executive secretary at MIT. “Not only because she was so young, but a girl.”
Pasterski admits she is unlike many of her peers, having never had a boyfriend, smoked a cigarette, or drunk an alcoholic beverage. She said she does not use social media and instead spends her time exploring the concepts of quantum gravity, black holes, and spacetime, the mathematical model that combines space and time into a single continuum.
She’s compiled her accomplishments on her website, PhysicsGirl.com, where her published articles and many other projects can be found and, while Pasterski stands out on her own, she seems to be part of a bigger trend. The number of physics graduates was at an all time low in 1999, but, according to the American Institute of Physics, that number has climbed significantly. In 2015, 8,081 bachelor’s degrees in physics were awarded, the highest number ever recorded. Many believe that climb is a result of millennials, specifically women, joining the field.
“Be optimistic about what you believe you can do,” Pasterski told Marie Claire earlier this year. “When you’re little, you say a lot of things about what you’ll do or be when you’re older—I think it’s important not to lose sight of those dreams.”
