ABSTRACT

Thomas Andrew Lehrer was born in New York City on April 9, 1928. His parents were James and Anna Lehrer. During his years in grade school and high school, Tom Lehrer was an outstanding student; early on, he showed all the promise of a prodigy at the piano, composing his own songs at the age of seven. He enrolled at Harvard University in 1943 at the age of fourteen, took his BA in mathematics three years later, and then received the MA in the following year, while teaching in the graduate school. Lehrer apparently established a record for length of time in graduate study, variously at Harvard and Columbia. Lehrer's teaching career unfolded at Harvard, where he taught calculus in the Business School and geometry in the Education School, and at Wellesley, where he taught statistics in the Psychology Department. Easily juggling careers, he taught concurrently at MIT from 1962 to 1971.