Hunter College Mourns the Loss of Alumna Mildred Dresselhaus

Hunter College mourns the loss of Mildred Dresselhaus—Professor Emerita of Physics and Electrical Engingeering at MIT, recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and alumna of Hunter College High School (’47) and Hunter College (’51)—who died on February 20, 2017. "Mildred Dresselhaus will be remembered for her intrepid leadership in the scientific community as well as for her role as a champion for women in science,” said Hunter College President Jennifer J. Raab. “Her life will continue to be an inspiration for all people who seek to break barriers.”

Born during the Great Depression to Polish immigrants, Mildred Dresselhaus grew up in the Bronx during an era when women who wanted to work outside the home were generally confined to three career paths: nursing, teaching and secretary jobs. But Dresselhaus had other passions. A whimsical tribute printed by classmates in her Hunter College High School yearbook testified to her early and well-known interest in the fields she would later pioneer: “Mildred equals brains plus fun. In math and science, she’s second to none.”

It was at Hunter College, she later reflected, that she first “had the idea that women could study physics as well as men could.” Dresselhaus was inspired at Hunter by 1977 Nobel Prize winner Rosalyn Yalow, who recognized her talent and encouraged her to pursue science. After graduating summa cum laude, Dresselhaus received a master’s from Radcliffe and a PhD from the University of Chicago. When she arrived at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory in 1960, only 4% of the students were women. In 1968, she became the first woman to attain full tenured rank at MIT, and she would go on to become a fierce advocate for women in STEM fields. And decades later, Dresselhaus would lift the next generation of barrier-breaking women from Hunter, when alumnae and Hall of Fame inductees Gillian Reynolds ’89 and Sandra Brown ’94—studying under Dresselhaus—became the third and sixth African American women, respectively, to earn their PhDs from MIT.

Nicknamed “the queen of carbon science,” Dresselhaus capped her long and decorated career as a 2014 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Nation’s highest civilian honor. In his introductory remarks, President Obama paid tribute to her as one of the most distinguished scientists of her generation: “An electrical engineer and a physicist, [she] rose in MIT’s ranks, performed groundbreaking experiments on carbon, became one of the world’s most celebrated scientists. And her influence is all around us -- in the cars we drive, the energy we generate, the electronic devices that power our lives.”
 
Dresselhaus is survived by her husband, Gene, their four children and five grandchildren.