Dr. Mildred Dresselhaus was a pioneering materials scientist and the first woman to attain the rank of Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Born in New York City in 1930, she earned her undergraduate degree from Hunter College before completing postgraduate studies at Cambridge University on a Fulbright Fellowship. She received her master's degree from Radcliffe College in 1953 and earned her PhD in physics from the University of Chicago in 1958, where she worked in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi. After serving as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University, she began her 57-year career at MIT in 1960, initially at the Lincoln Laboratory before becoming the first woman to achieve tenure in MIT's School of Engineering in 1968.
Known as the "Queen of Carbon Science," Dr. Dresselhaus made fundamental discoveries in the electronic structure of carbon materials that revolutionized the field of nanotechnology. Her research uncovered the quantum properties of graphite, carbon nanotubes, and other carbon-based materials, laying the essential groundwork for the isolation and characterization of graphene, which later earned the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics. She pioneered techniques to study materials at the atomic level and demonstrated how nanostructures could be engineered to separately adjust electrical and thermal conductivity for thermoelectric applications. Her seminal work established the theoretical foundation for carbon nanotechnology and resulted in over 1,700 publications that transformed materials science and engineering across multiple disciplines.
Dr. Dresselhaus was a tireless advocate for women in STEM throughout her career, creating programs to support female scientists and co-authoring the landmark 1994 MIT report that challenged gender discrimination in science and engineering. She mentored over 60 PhD students and inspired generations of researchers through her leadership as president of the American Physical Society and American Association for the Advancement of Science. Among her numerous accolades were the National Medal of Science (1990), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2014), and the IEEE Medal of Honor (2015), recognizing both her scientific contributions and her efforts to advance women in science. She passed away on February 20, 2017, leaving an enduring legacy as one of the most influential materials scientists of the 20th century whose work continues to shape nanotechnology research worldwide.
