Mildred (“Millie”) Dresselhaus has been known by many titles:\u00a0materials scientist, electrical engineer, nanophysicist, solid-state physicist\u2014and\u00a0notably, as\u00a0Institute Professor Emerita of Physics and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT<\/a>, where she finished her career with more than 1,700 research papers behind her name. A prolific researcher and author, she co-authored eight books in her lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Born to Polish Jewish immigrants in 1930, Dresselhaus was raised in New York City where her interest in science was kindled by local museums like the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As an adult, she attended Hunter College in New York, where she excelled in science classes and tutored other students. Dresselhaus was encouraged by one of her teachers\u2014the medicinal physicist and Nobel Laureate Rosalyn Yalow<\/a>\u2014to pursue a career in physics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After graduating from Hunter College, Dresselhaus pursued her postgraduate education at the\u00a0University of Cambridge\u00a0on a\u00a0Fulbright Fellowship. She then went on to earn her MA from\u00a0Radcliffe College. In 1958, she graduated with her PhD from\u00a0the\u00a0University of Chicago, where she worked alongside Enrico Fermi, a Nobel laureate and creator of\u00a0the world’s first nuclear reactor. Her next educational transition brought her to\u00a0Cornell University for her postdoc before she landed at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory as a staff member.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\nDresselhaus’ Early Life<\/h3>\n\n\n\n