PROVIDENCE, R.I. — When it came to physics, earning a doctorate really mattered to a Rhode Island man. And at age 89, Manfred Steiner finally earned his Ph.D.
“I always wanted to become a physicist,” Steiner, of East Providence, said after earning the degree from Brown University, the school said in a news release. He will turn 90 later this month.
On Sept. 15, 2021, Steiner successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation, “Corrections to the Geometrical Interpretation of Bosonization” at Brown University’s Department of Physics, the university said in a news release.
We are proud to see Manfred Steiner earn national recognition for earning his Ph.D. at age 89. The love of knowledge knows no boundaries.https://t.co/rM5VZ4mrLf
— Brown Physics (@brown_physics) November 8, 2021
Bosonization is a technique for studying systems of interacting fermions in low dimensions. It has applications in both particle and condensed matter physics.
“It has always been my dream,” Steiner told WPRI-TV. “I wanted this.”
It is Steiner’s third Ph.D. He earned a medical doctorate in 1955 from the University of Vienna, and 12 years later he earned his second Ph.D. in biochemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Brown University said in its news release.
“It’s my third doctorate, but this one I really cherish a lot,” Steiner told NPR. “That I made it -- and made it at this age.”
Steiner’s passion for physics began as a teenager, when he read about Albert Einstein and Max Planck, according to The Associated Press. Taking his family’s advice, Steiner chose medicine instead. But his love for physics never waned.
“When I was a medical student in the early ‘50s, I used to sneak into the physical institute, which was very close by the medical school,” Steiner told NPR. “(I’d) listen to some talks there because I was so interested in quantum physics, particularly quantum physics, the new stuff at that time.”
Steiner moved to Rhode Island after earning his second doctorate, taking a position as a hematologist in the newly established program in medicine at Brown University (now the Warren Alpert Medical School), Brown said in its release. In 1968 he was appointed assistant professor of medicine and was named a full professor in 1978. Steiner was appointed head of the medical school’s hematology department in 1985, a position he held for nine years.
Steiner, who grew up in Vienna, said his Austrian accent never left him.
“My students at Brown usually said, ‘He talks like the Terminator,’” Steiner told NPR.
Steiner moved to the University of North Carolina at Greenville in 1994 to establish a research program in hematology, a position he held in 2000, when he returned to Rhode Island.
Steiner and his wife, Sheila, 93, have been married since 1960, according to the AP. They have two children and six grandchildren.
Steiner said retirement and his age did not stop him from learning or pursuing his ultimate goal. He enrolled at Brown as a special student in 2000 and began taking undergraduate courses, WPRI reported.
“One or two classes a semester was enough for me,” Steiner told the television station. “So, I went to all the classes and eventually, I made it on to graduate school and I thought, ‘Why not continue now? I might as well get a Ph.D.’”
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