| 1 | Name: | Dr. Mildred S. Dresselhaus | |
| Institution: | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | ||
| Year Elected: | 1995 | ||
| Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 103. Engineering | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Deceased | ||
| Birth Date: | 1930 | ||
| Death Date: | February 20, 2017 | ||
Mildred Dresselhaus was born in Brooklyn, New York and grew up in a poor section of the Bronx. She attended the New York City public schools through junior high school. She then went to Hunter College High School in New York City and continued her education at Hunter College. She was a Fulbright Fellow at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University from 1951-52. Next, she earned her master's degree at Radcliffe in 1953 and continued on to get a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1958. Her thesis was on "The Microwave Surface Impedance of a Superconductor in a Magnetic Field." At the University of Chicago she came into contact with Enrico Fermi, one of the great physicists of the 20th century. The "survival" tactics that helped propel her to success were honed in her earliest years; raised in poverty, she learned as a child to protect herself against daily intimidation in a tough New York neighborhood. Dr. Dresselhaus started college planning to go into elementary school teaching. When she was a sophomore at Hunter College, she met Rosalyn Yalow, who taught her physics and later became a Nobel Laureate in medicine (1977). It was in part due to her interactions with Rosalyn Yalow that Dr. Dresselhaus recognized her potential as a physicist and developed higher goals for herself. Also coming from a disadvantaged background, Yalow encouraged the young undergraduate to press ahead despite detractors, taught her to recognize and seize opportunity, and followed her career as it unfolded with "advice and love". Mildred Dresselhaus moved to Cornell University to complete her NSF sponsored Post-Doctoral fellowship where she continued her studies on superconductivity. After her post-doctorate days were over, she and her husband moved to the Boston area where they both got jobs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts. Both worked at Lincoln Labs for the next 7 years. At the Lincoln Laboratory, she switched from research on superconductivity to magneto-optics and carried out a series of experiments that led to a fundamental understanding of the electronic structure of semimetals, especially graphite. With four young children, she was invited in 1967 by Louis Smullin, head of the Electrical Engineering Department, to come to MIT and be a visiting professor for a year. She was so enthusiastic about teaching undergraduates and graduate students, and about working with graduate students on research projects, that she was in 1968 appointed as a tenured full professor. She remained on the MIT faculty throughout her career, pursuing an intense research and teaching career in the area of electronic materials. A leader in promoting opportunities for women in science and engineering, Dr. Dresselhaus received a Carnegie Foundation grant in 1973 to encourage women's study of traditionally male dominated fields, such as physics. In 1973, she was appointed to The Abby Rockefeller Mauze chair, an Institute-wide chair, endowed in support of the scholarship of women in science and engineering. She greatly enjoyed her career in science. As Dr. Dresselhaus says about working with MIT students, "I like to be challenged. I welcome the hard questions and having to come up with good explanations on the spot. That's an experience I really enjoy." She has over her career graduated over 60 Ph.D. students and has given many invited lectures worldwide on her research work. Her later research interests were on little tiny things, which go under the name of nanostructures, carbon nanotubes, bismuth nanowires and low dimensional thermoelectricity. Awards received include the Karl T. Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics from the American Institute of Physics (2001); the Medal of Achievement in Carbon Science and Technology from the American Carbon Society (2001); honorary membership in the Ioffe Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (2000); the National Materials Advancement Award of the Federation of Materials Societies (2000); 19 honorary doctorate degrees; the Nicholson Medal of the American Physical Society (2000); the Weizmann Institute's Millennial Lifetime Achievement Award (2000); UNESCO's Award for Women in Science (2007); the University of Chicago's Alumni Medal (2008); the Presidential Enrico Fermi Award (2012); the Kavli Prize from the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (2012), the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the IEEE Medal of Honor (2015). She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. She was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1995. Mildred Dresselhaus died February 20, 2017, in Cambridge, Massachusetts at the age of 86. | |||