Anyone with a childhood dream they are still waiting to accomplish can find inspiration in Manfred Steiner, an 89-year-old Rhode Island man who just ticked one off his list: a Ph.D. in physics.
“It’s an old dream that starts in my childhood,” Steiner said, according to Brown University, where he earned the doctorate degree. “I always wanted to become a physicist.”
Instead of perusing this dream, circumstances led Steiner to study medicine before he fled his native Vienna, Austria, as World War II ended.
He said that his mother and uncle convinced him to choose medicine over physics.
“My uncle was a physician — an ear, nose and throat specialist — and he had taught in the United States for a while,” Steiner explained. “He taught plastic surgery — showing people how to make noses smaller or how to straighten them out. My family’s advice was that medicine was the best path for me. So, I reconciled myself, ‘they are older and wiser,’ and I followed their advice.”
Steiner earned an M.D. in 1955 from the University of Vienna and then made his way to Washington D.C., where he completed his initial training in internal medicine. From there, he went to Massachusetts train in hematology at Tufts University and in biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from MIT in 1967.
Next, he moved to Rhode Island to take a hematologist position in the newly established “Program in Medicine” at Brown. In 1968, he was appointed an assistant professor of medicine, working primarily in research. A decade later Steiner was promoted to full professor and in 1985 he was appointed head of the hematology section of the medical school. He stayed in the position until 1994.
Steiner then helped an associate develop a research program in hematology at the University of North Carolina, Greenville. He directed the program until 2000, when he retired from medicine and returned to Rhode Island.
Throughout his decades-long career in medicine, Steiner never lost his passion for physics.
“Even when I was in medical school I went at times to lectures by a renowned physicist Walter Thirring,” he said. “His lectures always fascinated me. I was captivated by quantum physics and wished I could go into more detail in this.”
However, he knew he could not devote himself to the field while he was practicing medicine.
“You cannot do medicine halfway,” he said. “You really have to dedicate your life to it.”
Steiner was approaching 70 when he retied from the medical field. Soon after, he started taking physics classes at MIT and then at Brown.
At the university where he spent much of his medical career, Steiner felt welcome in his new pursuit.
At that point, he wasn’t really aiming for another graduate degree.
“Originally I just wanted to take classes, doing something that helped my mind and was interesting to me,” Steiner said. By Spring 2007, he had completed enough classes to be admitted to the Graduate School as a Ph.D.
degree candidate.
“To be honest, I was skeptical because people do not usually do physics, especially theoretical physics, at an advanced age,” said Brad Marston, Steiner’s dissertation advisor. “But in a moment of weakness, I agreed and said ‘yes.’ I knew his story, and I was very sympathetic to his desire to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a physicist.”
Still, Marson gave Steiner a difficult problem to work on for his dissertation. It deals with bosonization, a phenomenon that happened to fermions and bosons, two types of particles that make up our world.
“I remember meeting Manfred in the hallway when he was taking undergraduate classes,” said Brown professor Jim Valles. “He was unabashed about wanting to do physics and having wanted to do it all his life. His excitement about physics as someone who had such a stellar career in another field felt really affirming.”
According to WPRI News, Steiner successfully defended his thesis, “Corrections to the Geometrical Interpretation of Bosonization,” this September.
“It feels really good,” he said. “I am really on top of the world.” He said he cherishes this degree the most, since it started as a childhood dream.
His work doesn’t stop at the degree or the dissertation. Now, Steiner is reworking part of his dissertation for publication. He plans to continue his theoretical physics work.
“Even though I am old, I would like to continue with physics,” Steiner said. “And even after writing and publishing this paper, I want to continue my research.”
He said it helps to keep his brain sharp.
“I could not imagine spending my life playing golf all the time,” Steiner said. “I wanted to do something that keeps my mind active.”
He added that, if someone has a dream they should follow it and that it “is important not to waste your older days.”
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