User:PhysicsSphinx/Lillian C. McDermott

Early life and education
McDermott was born in 1931 and raised in Washington Heights, Manhattan to Greek immigrant parents. Her father was a lawyer in the Greek government prior to immigrating and her mother came to the United States as a teenager. She graduated from Hunter College High School, at the time an all-girls school, before enrolling at Vassar College for her Bachelor of Arts degree.

While a student at Vassar College, McDermott had a music scholarship that funded her piano lessons, and she took courses in music theory, art history, and philosophy. She also studied physics and received a bachelors degree in physics in 1952. Following this, she enrolled at Columbia University for her graduate degree in physics with a specialization in nuclear physics. She received her PhD in 1959.