He was a professor of mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, best known for his contributions to theoretical physics with his discovery of Gerstenhaber algebra.

His father was trained as a jeweler, "but being unable to find work in this line he [took] employment in a factory making airplane precision instruments”.

The problems faced by talented but disadvantaged children today are preventing many who could be important contributors to the sciences, arts, and society in general, from achieving their potential.

"[1]Gerstenhaber was a child prodigy who was profiled in Leta Hollingworth's book Children Above 180 IQ (1942).

[2][1] In this book, Gerstenhaber was dubbed "Child L," and his prodigious abilities and personality traits were described in great detail.

[3] From 1945 to 1947 he served in the infantry in the United States Army as a corporal assigned to the Office of Military Government for Germany.

[5] At Yale, he participated in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition and was on the team representing Yale University (along with Murray Gell-Mann and Henry O. Pollak) that won the second prize in 1947; each of them received a monetary prize of $30 ($410 in current dollar terms).

[14] Gerstenhaber married Ruth Priscilla Zager on June 3, 1956, in the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York City.

[15][16] They lived in Merion Station, Pennsylvania, and Haverford, Pennsylvania, and had three children: Jeremy M. Gerstenhaber, David Ezra Gerstenhaber (now founder, president, and portfolio manager at Argonaut Management), and Rachel Rebecca Stern (now general counsel and head of strategic resources of FactSet).