Edward S. (Ned) Sternick of Vineyard Haven died on Nov. 30. He was 84.

He was born on Feb. 10, 1939, the son of the late Charles Sternick and Adele Sternick of Brookline.

Ned was highly educated, receiving his bachelor of science from Tufts University in 1960, a master of arts from Boston College in 1963, a PhD from the University of California Los Angeles in 1968 and a masters of business administration from Northeastern University in 1985.

At the beginning of his career, Ned flirted with dentistry and space research, but his career path veered sharply after two years of NASA experiments conducted in San Jose, Calif. in the early 1960s blew up on the rocket launch pad. Needing to support his growing family, he accepted admission to the highest-paying graduate program he could find: the newly-created PhD program for what is now known as medical physics at University of California, Los Angeles.

Ned’s career in medical physics was long and illustrious. He held positions at the Mary Hitchcock Hospital, now known as Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, in Hanover, N.H., Tufts Medical Center in Boston and Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, R.I., among others. His academic and professional career was well-respected. He traveled internationally, taught, served as president of the American Association for Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) in 1984 and published widely.

Outside of work, Ned’s passions included collecting stamps and first-day covers, studying his hero, New Hampshire statesman Daniel Webster, and serving as a docent at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum.

Ned is survived by his three children, Heidi Seary, Jennifer Sternick and Peter Sternick; two stepchildren, Scott Vrusho and Kimberly Biggs; and nine grandchildren. He was married twice, first to Joanna Henderson of New London, N.H. and then to the late Andrea Quigley.

Heidi, Jennifer and Peter will remember the lessons he taught them in childhood: that the best place to be on a hot summer day is in an air-conditioned movie theater, that good snacks are an important part of every grocery list and that most of their medical complaints — scraped knees, cut fingers and sunburn — could and would be resolved with the decisive diagnosis, “That’s going to turn green and fall off.”

They will also remember the lessons he taught them in adulthood: that tomorrow is never promised and that loyalty to your siblings is important and powerful.

Heidi, Jennifer and Peter would also like to thank Ned’s lifelong friend and professional colleague Bruce Curran, who has extended his kindness and support to them many times over many decades.