Mildred Dresselhaus: The Queen of Carbon Science
Mildred Dresselhaus: The Queen of Carbon Science There's an old proverb in science that says," We make progress by standing on the shoulders of the giants". Sometimes a researcher will spend their entire life doing important foundational work which paves the path for others to make discoveries later. One such giant was Mildred Dresselhaus. Mildred Dresselhaus (November 11, 1930 – February 20, 2017), known as the "Queen of Carbon Science", was an American physicist, materials scientist, and nanotechnologist. Born in Brooklyn, New York, she attended Hunter College where she was mentored by Rosalyn Yalow who went on to become a future Nobel laureate. Dresselhaus further went on to study at Cambridge University and the University of Chicago under the renowned physicist Enrico Fermi. After completing her PhD on semiconductors, she started her pioneering work on carbon at MIT and married her fellow physicist, Gene Dresselhaus. She stayed there for almost 60 years