George Robert Stibitz was born on 20 April 1904, in York, Pennsylvania. Stibitz's childhood was spent in Dayton, Ohio, where his father taught at a local college. Because of the interest in and aptitude for science and engineering that he had exhibited, Stibitz was enrolled at an experimental high school in Dayton established by Charles Kettering, inventor of the first automobile ignition system.

Stibitz enrolled at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. After earning his bachelor's degree there in 1926, he went on to Union College in Schenectady, New York, where he was awarded his M.S. degree in 1927. After graduating from Union, he worked as a technician at General Electric in Schenectady for one year before returning to Cornell University to begin his doctoral program. Stibitz received his Ph.D. in mathematical physics from Cornell in 1930. Stibitz's first job after graduation was as a research mathematician at the Bell Telephone Laboratories...