Michael Kevin Kearney – A Former Prodigy To Set Several World Records

Michael Kevin Kearney, who is popular for setting several world records, was born on January 18, 1984. Various world records were registered with his name because of graduating at a young age, and for teaching college students while still a teenager. This was what made him a prodigy. Other than that, he has won more than one million dollars as a game-show contestant.

Early Life

Kearney started speaking at the age of four months. He learned to read when he was just ten months old. When Michael was four, he was given multiple-choice diagnostic tests for a math program known as Johns Hopkins precocious math program. The brilliant boy scored perfect without having studied specifically for the exam. He studied in San Marin High School in Novato, California, for one year, and graduated at the age of six in 1990. 

Michael was homeschooled and was taught by his parents, especially his mother, a Japanese American. He suffered from ADHD, but his parents declined to use the offered prescription of Ritalin. Michael’s younger sister, Maeghan, is also a child prodigy graduating from college at sixteen. According to psychology professor Huey H Miller III, Michael was able to adjust well to his surroundings because of his parent’s determination, and the take-on-the-world attitude.

College education Of Michael Kevin Kearney

Michael enrolled at Santa Rosa Junior College in California, graduating from high school at age 6. After that, he studied at Santa Rosa Junior College and obtained an Associate of Science in Geology at the age of 10. His family moved to Alabama in 1993. Circa 1996, Meredith Vieira interviewed him on Turning Point (ABC News). Kearney became the youngest person ever o have a high-school diploma and undergraduate degrees.

At the age of 8, he took admission at The University of South Alabama and received a bachelor’s degree in anthropology in 1994. He got his name in the Guinness Book as the world’s youngest university graduate at the age of ten. At the age of 14, Michael obtained a master’s degree in chemistry at Middle Tennessee State University. At 18, he got his master’s degree in computer science at Vanderbilt University.

Research and teaching

A 118-page thesis by Kearney – “Kinetic Isotope Effects of Thymidine Phosphorylase“. This research was focussing on the kinetics of glycosyltransferase in nucleotide synthesis. At the time, Kearney was the youngest postgraduate in the world. 

In 1996, his family moved to Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Kearney attended Vanderbilt University and was teaching by the age of sixteen. He received his doctorate in chemistry at age 22, returning to Middle Tennessee State University as a teaching assistant.

Also Read: Brandenn Bremmer, a child prodigy ending up with suicide