Mildred Dresselhaus and Solid State Pedagogy at MIT

Abstract

When Mildred Spiewak Dresselhaus (figure 1) passed away in February 2017, she left behind an indelible legacy. The “Queen of Carbon,” as she was known, pioneered the physical study of the sixth element well before the keen attention attracted by buckyballs and nanotubes. Her groundwork ensured that when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov isolated and characterized graphene, they were a shoe-in for the Nobel Prize, which they took home in 2010. Dresselhaus also earned renown for her advocacy on behalf of women in science. She was the first woman to be honored with the title of Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and she pioneered leadership roles for women in many of the professional societies and organizations to which she belonged. Here, I focus on a less noted (though no less noteworthy) aspect of her legacy: her influence as a pedagogue.