Tirzah Kaufherr's PhD thesis on quantum frames of reference predates the 1984 Aharonov–Kaufherr journal paper by three years

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Tirzah Kaufherr's personal faculty page, hosted by Tel Aviv University's Quantum Information Group, lists her 1981 PhD thesis — completed at the University of South Carolina under the identical title "Quantum Frames of Reference" — three years before the 1984 journal paper of the same title and topic, co-authored with Yakir Aharonov (Phys. Rev. D 30:368). The same page separately lists a 1983 Tokyo symposium proceedings paper under the same title in between, documenting a three-stage paper trail: 1981 thesis → 1983 conference paper → 1984 journal paper.

This is independent corroboration — a different author, a different venue, from Aharonov's own 2026 oral-history interview — of one specific piece of the larger priority claim recorded in claim-aharonov-quantum-frames-of-reference-work-predated-1973-1984-publication-by-decade: that substantive work on the project predates its journal publication date by several years. It does not reach back to, or independently confirm, Aharonov's separate claim that the underlying idea itself originated even earlier, in an unpublished mid-1960s collaboration with Aage Petersen — Kaufherr's own documented involvement starts with her 1981 thesis, two decades after the Petersen-era discussions Aharonov describes.