futurism.com – At age 14, Sabrina Pasterski walked onto the MIT campus to request notarization of aircraft worthiness for her single-engine plane. She built it herself and had already flown the craft solo, so even within the bastion of brilliance that is MIT, people were interested. Nine years have passed, and now Pasterski is an MIT graduate and Harvard Ph.D. candidate in physics at age 23. (You can stay up to date with her many published papers and talks on her website, PhysicsGirl.com.)
Pasterski focuses on understanding quantum gravity, explaining gravity within the context of quantum mechanics. She is also interested in black holes and Spacetime. It’s probably no surprise that she’s known to the NASA scientists, and that she has a standing job offer from Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin.
Pasterski is exceptional in many ways, but she’s also part of a growing trend. In 1999, the number people earning physics bachelor’s degrees in the U.S. was at its lowest point in four decades, with only 3,178 awarded that year. However, in 2015 things looked much different, according to the American Institute of Physics. That year 8,081 bachelor’s degrees in physics were awarded — an all-time high. Physics doctorates also reached an all-time high of 1,860 in 2015. These numbers aren’t flukes or random spikes; the numbers for the previous two years were also high.
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