Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski built and flew an aircraft at 14, graduated from MIT with a perfect GPA in three years, had her research cited by Stephen Hawking, and turned down offers from NASA, Blue Origin, and a reported $1.1 million academic position to pursue physics' biggest unanswered questions. Today, many describe her as the "next Albert Einstein," not because she has replaced Einstein, but because she is tackling one of the greatest mysteries left from his work: how gravity behaves at the quantum level. Born in 1993 to a Cuban-American mother and a Polish-American father, Pasterski developed an early fascination with aviation. At age 12, she began assembling a Zenith CH 601 XL aircraft from a kit. Nearly two years later, she completed the project and flew it solo at 14, long before she was legally allowed to drive. Her passion for science also shone during her time at the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy, where she competed for a spot on the US International Physics Olympiad team and interned at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center and Blue Origin. Pasterski’s academic journey was marked by extraordinary achievements. When she first applied to MIT in 2010, she was placed on the waitlist. Her homemade aircraft reportedly played a pivotal role in securing her admission. She graduated from MIT in just three years with a perfect 5.0 GPA, becoming the first woman in about two decades to top the institute’s physics department. She also became the first woman to receive the prestigious Orloff Scholarship. Her research career took off when she earned her PhD at Harvard University under physicist Andrew Strominger. Collaborating with Strominger and Alexander Zhiboedov, she contributed to studies on the spin memory effect, a concept linked to gravitational waves and spacetime.#mit #sabrina_gonzalez_pasterski #stephen_hawking #perimeter_institute #simons_foundation
