Long-time Springer author and editor Mildred Dresselhaus is the North American winner of a 2007 L'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science. She and four other recipients, each representing a different continent, were named at a ceremony on February 22 at UNESCO House in Paris where each laureate was presented with a $100,000 award.
Dresselhaus was selected "for her research on solid state materials, including conceptualizing the creation of carbon nanotubes," according to L'Oréal and UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Due to their small size, high strength and electrical conductivity, carbon nanotubes are ideal for new materials used in objects such as lightweight bicycles and flat-panel screens.
Mildred Dresselhaus is co-editor of the Springer monograph Carbon Nanotubes, and a contributor to the Springer Handbook of Nanotechnology. She is co-author of the textbook Group Theory, due to be published by Springer in May 2007.
A native of Bronx, N.Y., Dresselhaus has conducted scientific research for more than four decades. An MIT professor of physics and electrical engineering, she received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She began her MIT career at the Lincoln Laboratory studying superconductivity. Mildred Dresselhaus has received numerous awards, including the U.S. National Medal of Science and 19 honorary doctorates worldwide.
Now in its ninth year, the L'Oréal-UNESCO Award for Women in Science is the only one of its kind to honor eminent women scientists at the international level. The Women in Science award is designed to recognize, reward and advance the role of women in scientific research as well as provide the next generation of women scientists with inspirational role models. Since its inception in 1998, 362 women from 76 countries have been recognized as L'Oréal-UNESCO laureates or fellows.