Dresselhaus

On February 7, Mildred Dresselhaus, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was one of the speakers in the College of Science's Centennial Distinguished Lecture Series, held in celebration of the 100th anniversary.

Dresselhaus excels in areas both inside and outside the realm of science, for which she has won numerous awards. Since 1961, she has been working with carbon science, the study of carbon materials. More recently, she began research related to nanoscience, which focuses on material compositions at an atomic level.

In a question and answer session with a group from the Women in Science Program, Dresselhaus told the group about her experiences as a PhD student and how the world of physics opened up during the late 1950s.

Dresselhaus shared how when she was a PhD student, there were no opportunities in physics for men or women. However, in 1957, Sputnik changed all of that and in 1958, when she graduated, her PhD research in superconductivity gained recognition and she got started.

Questioned about how to be at the forefront in science, Dresselhaus explained that there is a distribution of opportunities in all fields. It doesn’t take winning a prize to be great. “Some will go into academia, others into industry,” said Dresselhaus. “You just need to find a place where you can be great at what you do.”

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