Rate My Professor Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was one of the Institute for Advanced Study’s first Faculty members, serving from 1933 until his death in 1955 in the School of Mathematics. He played a significant part in the Institute’s early development after accepting the appointment at the invitation of founding Director Abraham Flexner. During his time at the Institute, Einstein pursued the goal of a unified field theory, seeking to unify the fundamental forces of nature at a time when this objective had been largely set aside by most physicists.

Einstein earned his Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 1905. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 and the Franklin Institute Medal in 1935. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Philosophical Society, and the Royal Society. Born in 1879 to a middle-class German Jewish family, Einstein graduated from the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1900. In 1905 he published four fundamental papers addressing the particle nature of light, Brownian motion, the principle of relativity, and mass-energy equivalence. He held positions including assistant professor at the University of Zurich, professor at the German University of Prague and the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and a research post in Berlin from 1914. Einstein completed his general theory of relativity in 1915. He joined the Institute for Advanced Study in 1933 after leaving Germany due to the rise of the Nazi government. While at the Institute he continued work on unified field theory and supported various causes including nuclear disarmament and civil liberties. He became an American citizen in 1940 and declined an offer to become the second President of Israel in 1952. Einstein died in 1955.

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