Edward Stewart Kennedy


Edward Stewart Kennedy was a historian of science specializing in medieval Islamic astronomical tables written in Persian and Arabic.
Edward S. Kennedy studied electrical engineering at Lafayette College, graduating in 1932. He then traveled to Iran to teach at Alborz College, at that time directed by the American Presbyterian Mission. In the Persian language environment, Kennedy made a study of Persian and became fluent in the language. After four years, he returned to Pennsylvania and took up study of series of exponential form related to Lambert series while at Lehigh University. He graduated Ph.D. in 1939.
When war broke out he enlisted with the US Army and was sent to Tehran to serve as an attaché, given his fluency in Persian. After the war, he saw Sarton and Neugebauer at Harvard as he had taken an interest in early Persian and Arabic science. Then he began to teach at the American University in Beirut. In 1951, he married Mary Helen Scanlon and together they had 3 children: Anna, Michael, and Nora. He participated at the American Research Center in Egypt until 1978 when he joined the Institute for the History of Arab Science at University of Aleppo. Edward and Mary-Helen left Lebanon in 1984.
Kennedy died in Doylestown, Pennsylvania at the age of 97.

Publications