Mildred Dresselhaus

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Mildred Dresselhaus
Barack Obama greets Burton Richter and Mildred Dresselhaus (cropped).jpg
Mildred Dresselhaus at the White House in 2012
Born
Mildred Spiewak

(1930-11-11)November 11, 1930
Brooklyn, New York, U.S.
DiedFebruary 20, 2017(2017-02-20) (aged 86)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater
Known forCarbon nanotubes
Awards
Scientific career
FieldsApplied physics
Institutions
Doctoral studentsGregory Timp Deborah Chung

Mildred Dresselhaus[1] (née Spiewak; November 11, 1930 – February 20, 2017),[2] known as the "queen of carbon science",[3] was the first female Institute Professor and professor emerita of physics and electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[4] Dresselhaus won numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, the Enrico Fermi Award and the Vannevar Bush Award.

Early life and education[edit]

Mildred was born Mildred Spiewak on November 11, 1930, in Brooklyn, the daughter of Ethel (Teichtheil) and Meyer Spiewak, who were Polish Jewish immigrants.[5][6]

Raised in the Bronx, Dresselhaus received her high school degree at Hunter College High School. She received her undergraduate degree at Hunter College in New York in 1951, and was counseled by future Nobel-Prize-winner Rosalyn Yalow to pursue further education in physics.[2] She carried out postgraduate study at the University of Cambridge on a Fulbright Fellowship and Harvard University, where she received her MA from Radcliffe College. She received a PhD from the University of Chicago in 1958 where she studied under Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi.[7] She then spent two years at Cornell University as a postdoc before moving to Lincoln Lab as a staff member.

Career and legacy[edit]

Dresselhaus had a 57-year career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[7] She became Abby Rockefeller Mauze 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 Institute Professor at MIT[8][9][10]

Dresselhaus was awarded the National Medal of Science in 1990 in recognition of her work on electronic properties of materials as well as expanding the opportunities of women in science and engineering.[11][12] And in 2005 she was awarded the 11th Annual Heinz Award in the category of Technology, the Economy and Employment.[13] In 2008 she was awarded the Oersted Medal, and in 2015 the IEEE Medal of Honor.

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. She also has served as president of the American Physical Society, the first female president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and treasurer of the National Academy of Sciences. 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.

President Barack Obama greets 2010 Fermi Award recipients Dr. Mildred S. Dresselhaus and Dr. Burton Richter in the Oval Office, May 7, 2012
President Barack Obama greets Dr. Mildred Dresselhaus, third from right, and Dr. Burton Richter, right, May 7, 2012.

In 2012 Dresselhaus was co-recipient of the Enrico Fermi Award, along with Burton Richter.[14] On May 31, 2012, Dresselhaus was awarded the Kavli Prize[3] "for her pioneering contributions to the study of phonons, electron-phonon interactions, and thermal transport in nanostructures."[15]

In 2014, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.[16]

Dresselhaus' former students include such notable materials scientists as Deborah Chung[17] and notable physicists as Nai-Chang Yeh, Greg Timp,.

There are several physical theories named after Dresselhaus. The Hicks-Dresselhaus Model (L. D. Hicks and Dresselhaus) [18] 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) [19] first predicted the band structures of carbon nanotubes. The Rashba-Dresselhaus Effect refers, however, to the spin-orbital interaction effect modeled by Gene Dresselhaus, Mildred Dresselhaus's husband.

In 2017, Dresselhaus was the face of a General Electric television advertisement which asked the question "What if female scientists were celebrities?" aimed to increase the number of women in STEM roles in its ranks.[20]

Oral history interview with Mildred Dresselhaus on the occasion of her winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the U.S. government, in 2014.

Contributions to scientific knowledge[edit]

Dresselhaus was particularly noted for her work on graphite, graphite intercalation compounds, fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, spin-orbit coupling in semiconductors, and low-dimensional thermoelectrics. Her group made frequent use of electronic band structure, Raman scattering and the photophysics of carbon nanostructures.[7] Her research helped develop technology based on thin graphite which allow electronics to be "everywhere," including clothing and smartphones.[7]

Personal life[edit]

She was married to Gene Dresselhaus, a well known theoretician, discoverer of the Dresselhaus effect. They had four children: Marianne, Carl, Paul, and Elliot; and five grandchildren.[7]

Honors and awards[edit]

Selected publications[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Mildred Dresselhaus was elected in 1974 as a member of National Academy of Engineering in Electronics, Communication & Information Systems Engineering and Materials Engineering for contributions to the experimental studies of metals and semimetals, and to education.
  2. ^ a b MIT News Office (February 21, 2017). "Institute Professor Emerita Mildred Dresselhaus, a pioneer in the electronic properties of materials, dies at 86". MIT News. Retrieved February 21, 2017.
  3. ^ a b Queen of Carbon Science, U.S. News & World Report. By Marlene Cimons, National Science Foundation. July 27, 2012. Retrieved August 14, 2012.
  4. ^ Natalie Angier (July 2, 2012). "Carbon Catalyst for Half a Century". New York Times. Retrieved 2012-07-03.
  5. ^ Who's who in Frontier Science and Technology. Marquis Who's Who.
  6. ^ Madsen, Lynnette. Successful Women Ceramic and Glass Scientists and Engineers: 100 Inspirational Profiles. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9781118733714.
  7. ^ a b c d e "Mildred Dresselhaus: Physicist Burst out of 1940s Mold for Smart Women". Wall Street Journal. March 4, 2017. p. A9. Retrieved March 5, 2017.
  8. ^ "80th Birthday Celebration for Mildred Dresselhaus". web.mit.edu. Retrieved 2015-04-18.
  9. ^ "SENATE CONFIRMS DRESSELHAUS AS DIRECTOR OF DOE OFFICE OF SCIENCE". U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Retrieved 2015-04-18.
  10. ^ "NSF and NSB Pay Tribute to Three Top American Scientists and Public Service Awardees at Annual Ceremony". US National Science Foundation (NSF). Retrieved 2015-04-18.
  11. ^ "Dresselhaus Wins Medal of Science" (Press release). MIT News Office. November 14, 1990. Retrieved 2007-05-30.
  12. ^ "National Science Foundation - The President's National Medal of Science". Retrieved November 24, 2014.
  13. ^ "The Heinz Awards, Mildred Dresselhaus profile".
  14. ^ "President Obama Names Scientists Mildred Dresselhaus and Burton Richter as the Enrico Fermi Award Winners".
  15. ^ 2012 Kavli Prizes/Mildred S. Dresselhaus/2012 Nanoscience Citation, Kavli Foundation. Retrieved August 14, 2012.
  16. ^ "Obama awards Presidential Medal of Freedom to 18". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved November 24, 2014.
  17. ^ Chung, D. D. L. (2017-03-15). "Mildred S. Dresselhaus (1930–2017)". Nature. 543 (7645): 316–316. Bibcode:2017Natur.543..316C. doi:10.1038/543316a.
  18. ^ "Effect of quantum-well structures on the thermoelectric figure of merit".
  19. ^ "Electronic structure of graphene tubules based on C60".
  20. ^ Weil, Martin (February 22, 2017). "Mildred Dresselhaus, physicist dubbed 'queen of carbon science,' dies at 86". Retrieved March 4, 2017.
  21. ^ "Doing the right things". ETH Zurich. November 21, 2015. Retrieved November 23, 2015.
  22. ^ "Spotlight | National Inventors Hall of Fame". Invent.org. 2013-11-21. Retrieved 2016-05-29.
  23. ^ "President Obama Announces the Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipients". The White House. November 10, 2014. Retrieved November 11, 2014.
  24. ^ "PolyU to honour five distinguished personalities at 19th Congregation". The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. September 23, 2013. Retrieved March 24, 2015.
  25. ^ MIT
  26. ^ "1999 Dwight Nicholson Medal for Outreach Recipient". American Physical Society.
  27. ^ "Group 2: Astronomy, Physics and Geophysics". Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. Archived from the original on December 22, 2017. Retrieved December 22, 2017.

External links[edit]

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