Michael Kearney

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Michael Kevin Kearney (born January 18, 1984 in Honolulu ) is a former child prodigy from the United States . He obtained his first master's degree at the age of 10. He has been a doctor of biochemistry and a university lecturer since he was 23 years old .

Life

Early phase

Cassidy Kearney, of Japanese origin, suffered from anorexia and blood poisoning during her pregnancy . As a result, her doctors predicted that her child would likely be born mentally retarded. She also had very high blood pressure, which is why she was in the hospital from the 5th to the 7th month of pregnancy. Her husband Kevin was working in the US Navy and at the time was on a minesweeper in the Indian Ocean. Michael was born prematurely at the age of 7 months . When he was five months old, speaking in short grammatically correct sentences, he became interested in the video games his father played in the arcade. The parents moved from Hawaii to San Diego , Southern California, where his maternal grandparents lived.

Kindergarten and school

The enrollment or admission to kindergarten was a problem. State schools were not allowed to accept children under the age of 5. The private Spring Valley Montessori School in Tacoma ( Washington ), where the family moved for work, wanted to protect him from supposedly over-ambitious parents. In her opinion, at three years old he was way too young for school. Reading demonstrations by Michael were dismissed with the accusation of memorization and disbelief. In the end he was accepted by Montessori, but his parents took him back from school when a teacher took several months to point out to the mother that her child could already read.

At the age of four he took his first IQ test - the Stanford-Binet LM - at the University of San Francisco in the Child Development Center and achieved the maximum value of this test of 168. However, the test is designed for six-year-olds and not four-year-olds. In the same year he became a member of the Association for the Gifted, Mensa .

The family lived in San Francisco at the time , and the father left the Navy to help with class. Michael was largely tutored in a special Oak Meadows home schooling program by his mother and was able to finish high school from home by age six (record) by taking the high school graduation tests on the fly. He passed the last final test with the grade "A-".

Junior College and Universities

He then studied geology as an undergraduate at Community College in Santa Rosa and graduated with an associate degree (record) at the age of 8 . His mother, who had also signed up, did his notes because Kearney's psychomotor skills matched those of his peers. He and his sister also suffer from agrafia , the inability to write words and texts. His sister Maeghan, who graduated in Animal Science in 2006, is also gifted.

On June 5, 1994, he graduated with 10 years at the University of South Alabama his study anthropology with the average 3.6 and cum laude from. Again, he was the youngest person to graduate at the time (the Bachelor's degree is usually for undergraduates, but not in anthropology).

He then studied biochemistry at Middle Tennessee State University . He wrote his thesis at the age of 14 on the growth of cancer cells ( Kinetic Isotope Effects of Thymidine Phosphorylase ). The Indian Tathagat Avatar Tulsi (12 years old) has now broken this record as the youngest postgraduate .

He then studied computer science at Vanderbilt University, where he obtained his second Masters degree at 18 . He received his PhD in biochemistry from Middle Tennessee State University in 2006, where he also taught chemistry.

In November 2006, he won $ 1 million on the "Goldrush" quiz show.

criticism

Kearney's appearance on an American talk show in 1994 sparked a debate about whether it made sense for a child to enroll in the various types of school this early. He sometimes had problems during his school / university days. An English lecturer at Santa Rosa Junior College gave him the final grade B , although he had previously passed all papers with an A grade , on the grounds that she did not think he could understand adult romance. A professor at Vanderbilt University declined to work with a 14 year old.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Howard E Gardner: Extraordinary Minds: Portraits Of 4 Exceptional Individuals And An Examination Of Our Own Extraordinariness . Basic Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-7867-2321-8 , pp. 36/37 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ↑ a b c Richard Kahlenberg. The Smart Money Is on This Young Genius . In: latimes.com, January 15, 1995; accessed November 29, 2015
  3. ↑ Middle Tennessee State University website Veterinarian-to-be, age 16, set to receive her 'sheepskin' May 11 . ( Memento from February 18, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Theses  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Dr. Paul C. Kline, Middle Tennessee State University website, accessed November 29, 2015@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / w2.mtsu.edu  
  5. ↑ Erica Goode. The Uneasy Fit Of the Precocious And the Average . In: nytimes.com on March 12, 2002, accessed November 29, 2015
  6. ↑ Nashville resident wins AOL's Gold Rush . Nashville Business Journal website November 10, 2006, accessed November 29, 2015
  7. ↑ Brian Dakss. $ 1M To Child Prodigy in AOL's' Goldrush . In: cbsnews.com of November 10, 2006, accessed November 29, 2015
  8. ↑ What Are Child Geniuses Like As Adults? . From: abcnews.go.com, accessed November 29, 2015
  9. ↑ Susan Surapruik. Teen enrolls in Berkeley's doctoral program . On: GW Hatchet website of September 3, 1998, accessed November 29, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Kearney, Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kearney, Michael Kevin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American college professor and child prodigy
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1984
PLACE OF BIRTH Honolulu