Mildred Dresselhaus''Mildred Dresselhaus'' was elected in 1974
as a member of

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy ...

in Electronics, Communication & Information Systems Engineering and Materials Engineering for contributions to the experimental studies of

metals A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

and

semimetals A semimetal is a material with a very small overlap between the bottom of the conduction band and the top of the valence band. According to electronic band theory, solids can be classified as insulators, semiconductors, semimetals, or metals. ...

, and to education. (' Spiewak; November 11, 1930 – February 20, 2017), known as the "Queen of Carbon Science",Queen of Carbon Science
''U.S. News & World Report''. By Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation. July 27, 2012. Retrieved August 14, 2012. was an American

nanotechnologist Nanotechnology, also shortened to nanotech, is the use of matter on an atomic, molecular, and Supramolecular complex, supramolecular scale for industrial purposes. The earliest, widespread description of nanotechnology referred to the particul ...

. She was an

Institute Professor An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...

and Professor Emerita of physics and electrical engineering at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. Dresselhaus won numerous awards including the

Presidential Medal of Freedom The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian award of the United States, along with the Congressional Gold Medal. It is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made "an especially merito ...

, the

National Medal of Science The National Medal of Science is an honor bestowed by the President of the United States to individuals in science and engineering who have made important contributions to the advancement of knowledge in the fields of behavioral and social scienc ...

, the

Enrico Fermi Award The Enrico Fermi Award is a scientific award conferred by the President of the United States. It is awarded to honor scientists of international stature for their lifetime achievement in the development, use, or production of energy. It was establ ...

and the

Vannevar Bush Award The National Science Board established the Vannevar Bush Award ( ) in 1980 to honor Vannevar Bush's unique contributions to public service. The annual award recognizes an individual who, through public service activities in science and technology ...

Early life and education

Dresselhaus was born on November 11, 1930, in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, New York City, the daughter of Ethel (Teichtheil) and Meyer Spiewak, who were Polish Jewish immigrants. Her family was heavily affected by the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

so from a young age Dresselhaus helped provide income for the family by doing piecework assembly tasks at home and by working in a zipper factory during the summer. As a grade school student, Dresselhaus' first 'teaching job' was tutoring a special-needs student for fifty cents a week, and she learned how to be a good teacher. Dresselhaus credited New York's free museums, including the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...

and the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, with sparking her interest in science. She and her brother, Irving Spiewak, were scholarship students at the Greenwich House Music School which introduced her to a different world of musical, artistic and intellectual leanings. Dresselhaus was raised and attended grade school in the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

. Her older brother informed her of the opportunity to apply to

Hunter College High School Hunter College High School is a secondary school located in the Carnegie Hill neighborhood on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is administered by Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY). Hunter is publicly funded, and there i ...

, where she excelled and gained practice as a teacher by tutoring fellow students.

Experience at Hunter College

Dresselhaus attended

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

in New York. Traditionally a women's college, during Dresselhaus's time as a student there, Hunter College's Bronx campus opened itself to a flood of male

G.I. Bill The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, was a law that provided a range of benefits for some of the returning World War II veterans (commonly referred to as G.I.s). The original G.I. Bill expired in 1956, bu ...

beneficiaries. Dresselhaus later explained:

The boys in the science classes were toward the bottom of the class... They always used to come to me for help.... That might be somewhat significant in my story, because I ''never'' got the idea in college that science was a man's profession.

While attending Hunter, one of her professors, and future Nobel-Prize-winner

Rosalyn Yalow Rosalyn Sussman Yalow (July 19, 1921 – May 30, 2011) was an American medical physicist, and a co-winner of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (together with Roger Guillemin and Andrew Schally) for development of the radioimmunoassay ...

took interest in Dresselhaus and encouraged her to apply for graduate fellowships and pursue a career in physics. Dresselhaus graduated with her undergraduate degree in liberal arts in 1951.

After College

She carried out postgraduate study at the

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

on a

Fulbright Fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

, where she received her MA from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

. She received a PhD from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1958 where she studied under Nobel laureate

Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian (later naturalized American) physicist and the creator of the world's first nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1. He has been called the "architect of the nuclear age" and ...

. She then spent two years at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

as a postdoc before moving to

Lincoln Lab The MIT Lincoln Laboratory, located in Lexington, Massachusetts, is a United States Department of Defense federally funded research and development center chartered to apply advanced technology to problems of national security. Research and de ...

as a staff member.

Career and legacy

Dresselhaus had a 57-year career at the

. She became the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Visiting Professor of electrical engineering at MIT in 1967, became a tenured faculty member in 1968, and became a professor of physics in 1983. In 1985, she was appointed the first female

at MIT As the exotic compounds she studied became increasingly relevant to modern science and engineering, she was uniquely positioned to become a world-leading expert and write one of the standard textbooks. Her groundwork in the field led to

Andre Geim , birth_date = , birth_place = Sochi, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union , death_date = , death_place = , workplaces = , nationality = Dutch and British , fields = Condensed matter physics ...

and

Konstantin Novoselov Sir Konstantin Sergeevich Novoselov ( rus, Константи́н Серге́евич Новосёлов, p=kənstɐnʲˈtʲin sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ nəvɐˈsʲɵləf; born 1974) is a Russian-British physicist, and a professor at the ...

isolating and characterizing graphene, for which they were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize. Dresselhaus was awarded the

in 1990 in recognition of her work on electronic properties of materials as well as expanding the opportunities of women in science and engineering. In 2005 she was awarded the 11th Annual

Heinz Award The Heinz Awards are individual achievement honors given annually by the Heinz Family Foundation. The Heinz Awards each year recognize outstanding individuals for their innovative contributions in three areas: the Arts, the Economy and the Enviro ...

in the category of Technology, the Economy and Employment. In 2008, she was awarded the

Oersted Medal The Oersted Medal recognizes notable contributions to the teaching of physics. Established in 1936, it is awarded by the American Association of Physics Teachers. The award is named for Hans Christian Ørsted. It is the Association's most prestig ...

. In 2012, she was co-recipient of the

, along with

Burton Richter Burton Richter (March 22, 1931 – July 18, 2018) was an American physicist. He led the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) team which co-discovered the J/ψ meson in 1974, alongside the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) team led by S ...

, and was awarded the

Kavli Prize The Kavli Prize was established in 2005 as a joint venture of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research, and the Kavli Foundation. It honors, supports, and recognizes scientists for outstan ...

"for her pioneering contributions to the study of phonons, electron-phonon interactions, and thermal transport in nanostructures." In 2014, she was awarded the

and was inducted into the US National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014. In 2015, she received the

IEEE Medal of Honor The IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It has been awarded since 1917, when its first recipient was Major Edwin H. Armstrong. It is given for an exceptional contribution ...

. In 2000–2001, she was the director of the Office of Science at the U.S. Department of Energy. From 2003 to 2008, she was the chair of the governing board of the

American Institute of Physics The American Institute of Physics (AIP) promotes science and the profession of physics, publishes physics journals, and produces publications for scientific and engineering societies. The AIP is made up of various member societies. Its corpora ...

. She also has served as president of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

, the first female president of the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

, and treasurer of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

. Her former students include such notable materials scientists as Deborah Chung and physicists as

Nai-Chang Yeh Nai-Chang Yeh (; born 1961) is a Taiwanese-American physicist specializing in experimental condensed matter physics. Early life and education She was born and grew up in Chiayi, Taiwan and received her B. Sc. from National Taiwan University i ...

and Greg Timp. Barack Obama greets Burton Richter and Mildred Dresselhaus

There are several physical theories named after Dresselhaus. The Hicks-Dresselhaus Model ( L. D. Hicks and Dresselhaus) is the first basic model for low-dimensional thermoelectrics, which initiated the whole band field. The SFDD model ( Riichiro Saito, Mitsutaka Fujita, Gene Dresselhaus, and Mildred Dresselhaus) first predicted the band structures of carbon nanotubes. The

Dresselhaus effect The Dresselhaus effect is a phenomenon in solid-state physics in which spin–orbit interaction causes energy bands to split. It is usually present in crystal systems lacking inversion symmetry. The effect is named after Gene Dresselhaus, husband ...

refers, however, to the

spin–orbit interaction In quantum physics, the spin–orbit interaction (also called spin–orbit effect or spin–orbit coupling) is a relativistic interaction of a particle's spin with its motion inside a potential. A key example of this phenomenon is the spin–orbi ...

effect modeled by Gene Dresselhaus, Mildred Dresselhaus's husband. Dresselhaus devoted a great deal of time to supporting efforts to promote increased participation of women in physics. In 1971, Dresselhaus and a colleague organized the first Women's Forum at MIT as a seminar exploring the roles of women in science and engineering. In honor of her legacy, the American Physical Society (APS) created th
Millie Dresselhaus Fund
to support and empower women in physics. Dresselhaus was the face of a 2017

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

television advertisement which asked the question "What if female scientists were celebrities?" aimed to increase the number of women in

STEM Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

roles in its ranks. In 2019, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Board of Directors created the IEEE Mildred Dresselhaus Medal, awarded annually "for outstanding technical contributions in science and engineering, of great impact to IEEE fields of interest."

Contributions to scientific knowledge

Dresselhaus was particularly noted for her work on

graphite Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on large ...

, graphite intercalation compounds,

fullerene A fullerene is an allotrope of carbon whose molecule consists of carbon atoms connected by single and double bonds so as to form a closed or partially closed mesh, with fused rings of five to seven atoms. The molecule may be a hollow sphere, ...

carbon nanotube A scanning tunneling microscopy image of a single-walled carbon nanotube Rotating single-walled zigzag carbon nanotube A carbon nanotube (CNT) is a tube made of carbon with diameters typically measured in nanometers. ''Single-wall carbon na ...

s, and low-dimensional

thermoelectrics Thermoelectric materials show the thermoelectric effect in a strong or convenient form. The ''thermoelectric effect'' refers to phenomena by which either a temperature difference creates an electric potential or an electric current creates a t ...

. Her group made frequent use of electronic band structure,

Raman scattering Raman scattering or the Raman effect () is the inelastic scattering of photons by matter, meaning that there is both an exchange of energy and a change in the light's direction. Typically this effect involves vibrational energy being gained by a ...

and the photophysics of carbon nanostructures. Her research helped develop technology based on thin graphite which allow electronics to be "everywhere," including clothing and

smartphones A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, which ...

. With the appearance of lasers in the 1960s, Dresselhaus started to use lasers for magneto-optics experiments, which later led to the creation of a new model for the electronic structure of graphite. A great part of her research dedicates to the study of 'buckyballs' and graphene focusing a great deal in the electrical properties of carbon nanotubes and enhancing thermoelectric properties of nanowires.

Personal life

Her first husband was physicist Frederick Reif. She was then married to Gene Dresselhaus, a well known theoretician and discoverer of the

. They had four children - Marianne, Carl, Paul, and Eliot - and five grandchildren.

Honors and awards

*Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science from the

ETH Zurich (colloquially) , former_name = eidgenössische polytechnische Schule , image = ETHZ.JPG , image_size = , established = , type = Public , budget = CHF 1.896 billion (2021) , rector = Günther Dissertori , president = Joël Mesot , ac ...

, 2015 *

, 2015 (first female recipient) *

National Inventors Hall of Fame The National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHF) is an American not-for-profit organization, founded in 1973, which recognizes individual engineers and inventors who hold a U.S. patent of significant technology. Besides the Hall of Fame, it also opera ...

induction 2014 *

, 2014 *Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science,

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is a public research university located in Hung Hom, Hong Kong near Hung Hom station. The University is one of the eight government-funded degree-granting tertiary institutions in Hong Kong. Founded ...

, Hong Kong, 2013 * Von Hippel Award,

Materials Research Society The Materials Research Society (MRS) is a non-profit, professional organization for materials researchers, scientists and engineers. Established in 1973, MRS is a member-driven organization of approximately 14,000 materials researchers from academi ...

, 2013 *

in Nanoscience, 2012 *

(second female recipient), 2012 *

(second female recipient), 2009 * ACS Award for Encouraging Women into Careers in the Chemical Sciences, 2009 *

Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize The Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize is an annual award given by the American Physical Society "to recognize and encourage outstanding theoretical or experimental contributions to condensed matter physics." It was endowed by AT&T Bell Lab ...

, American Physical Society, 2008 *

, 2007 * L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science, 2007 *

for Technology, the Economy and Employment, 2005 *

IEEE Founders Medal The IEEE Founders Medal is an award is presented for outstanding contributions in the leadership, planning, and administration of affairs of great value to the electrical and electronics engineering profession. It may be presented to an individual ...

Recipients, 2004 *

Karl Taylor Compton Karl Taylor Compton (September 14, 1887 – June 22, 1954) was a prominent American physicist and president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 1930 to 1948. The early years (1887–1912) Karl Taylor Compton was born in ...

Medal for Leadership in Physics, American Institute of Physics, 2001 *Medal of Achievement in Carbon Science and Technology, American Carbon Society, 2001 *Honorary Member of the

Ioffe Institute The Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (for short, Ioffe Institute, russian: Физико-технический институт им. А. Ф. Иоффе) is one of Russia's largest research centers specialized ...

, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia, 2000 *National Materials Advancement Award of the Federation of Materials Societies, 2000 *Honorary Doctorate from the

Catholic University of Leuven University of Leuven or University of Louvain (french: Université de Louvain, link=no; nl, Universiteit Leuven, link=no) may refer to: * Old University of Leuven (1425–1797) * State University of Leuven (1817–1835) * Catholic University of ...

, Belgium, February 2000 *Nicholson Medal,

, March 2000 *

Weizmann Institute The Weizmann Institute of Science ( he, מכון ויצמן למדע ''Machon Vaitzman LeMada'') is a public research university in Rehovot, Israel, established in 1934, 14 years before the State of Israel. It differs from other Israeli univ ...

's Millennial Lifetime Achievement Award, June 2000 *SGL Carbon Award, American Carbon Society, 1997 *Member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

, 1995 *

, 1990 *Member of the

(U.S.), 1985 *Member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

, 1974 *

Society of Women Engineers The Society of Women Engineers (SWE) is an international not-for-profit educational and service organization. Founded in 1950 and headquartered in the United States, the Society of Women Engineers is a major advocate for women in engineering and ...

Achievement Award, 1977 *Fellow,

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Univer ...

Selected publications

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

References

External links

Freeview video interview with Mildred Dresslhaus by the Vega Science Trust

Homepage
*

"What if female scientists were celebrities?"
GE advertisement (2017) *
Mildred Dresselhaus
Video produced by '' Makers: Women Who Make America'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Dresselhaus, Mildred S. 1930 births 2017 deaths American nanotechnologists American women physicists American women engineers Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the American Physical Society Honorary Fellows of the Institute of Physics Members of the United States National Academy of Engineering Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Enrico Fermi Award recipients L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science laureates National Medal of Science laureates MIT School of Engineering faculty Radcliffe College alumni Hunter College alumni Hunter College High School alumni University of Chicago alumni Cornell University alumni American materials scientists Jewish American scientists People from Brooklyn 21st-century American physicists 20th-century American physicists 21st-century American women scientists Carbon scientists American people of Polish-Jewish descent MIT Lincoln Laboratory people Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters Scientists from New York (state) Kavli Prize laureates in Nanoscience Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize winners American women academics IEEE Medal of Honor recipients 21st-century American Jews Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery 20th-century American women Members of the American Philosophical Society Presidents of the American Physical Society