Promethea Pythaitha

Promethea Olympia Kyrene Pythaitha (born "Jasmine Smith" in 1991) is an American child genius with an IQ of 173. She started reading at age 1, began learning college-level calculus and was profiled by a CBS News 48 Hours special on "Whiz Kids!" at age 7, and at age 13 became the youngest student to complete work for a bachelor's degree from Montana State University in Mathematics. A local family had paid for her tuition through the completion of her first degree, Pythaitha wrote to Montana politicians, arguing that the state of Montana pledges a taxpayer funded education to typical teenagers (in high school), but that she was unfairly ineligible. Her alma mater offered to waive her tuition until she turned 16.

Controversy In 2006, Pythaitha was awarded a $10,000 scholarship by the PanHellenic Scholarship Foundation. In January 2007, she was invited to speak in Chicago at a banquet to honor the Festival of the Three Hierarchs, a commemoration of the three founders of the Greek Orthodox Church. Her topic was to be the role of the church in education. Pythaitha received messages from passionate Greeks in America and Greece. Some sent her hate mail, but others commended her courage and sent books and offers of tuition. After her speech, she was invited to visit Greece for five days and was interviewed by Alpha TV. and in 2013, a settlement was reached in the subsequent court case.