Eric Eason composed a 10-part wind ensemble and built a robot that plays the piano.
He was co-author of an article published in the European Physical Journal and won a prestigious $250,000 Hertz Fellowship that he will use to earn a doctorate at Stanford University in condensed matter physics.
And yet, when the University of Colorado prodigy graduates in May with a bachelor’s degree in applied math and physics, he will have just turned 18.
Quenching his thirst for knowledge has been a challenge for his parents.
After Eric spent a year at Summit Middle School in Boulder, Ernie and Laurie Eason considered putting him in high school.
“Then we thought, ‘Why bother driving him all the way to high school when he could start studying calculus at CU?’ ” Laurie Eason said.
So in 2002, when he was 10, they set up a program that included home schooling, tutoring and college courses at the nearby university.
The then-prepubescent college student liked the fact that professors didn’t dawdle.
“Eric appreciated the speed,” Laurie Eason said.
Eric likes to ride his bicycle, ski and play the piano. He built robots that play the piano or solve a Rubik’s cube, and he earned an Eagle Scout award.
While at CU, he wrote an honors thesis in physics about improving an experimental scanning tunneling microscope to study high-temperature superconductors.
“Eric has both an extraordinary academic record and an extraordinary range of achievements in research,” said professor John Price, director of CU’s engineering physics program.
Of May’s graduates, Eric has the highest grade-point average in CU’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.
He began a demanding application process seeking a Hertz Fellowship in October that included tests, two technical physics interviews and essays. Only 10 of 543 college graduates across the nation who applied for the fellowship received one.
“Hertz fellows are chosen for their intellect, their ingenuity and their potential to bring meaningful and lasting change to our society,” according to the foundation.
In an interview Tuesday, Eric suggested one problem that he might look to solve in his graduate studies. He said more energy is lost sending electricity across the country on high-power transmission lines than is generated through wind, solar and geothermal mechanisms combined. Finding a means to transmit electricity without those energy losses would have a tremendous effect on society, he said.
“I’d like to do research that has practical applications, that is useful in everyday life,” Eric said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
