Portrait of Mildred Dresselhaus

Birthday profile

Mildred Dresselhaus

Mildred Dresselhaus, American physicist and academic (died 2017)

Born
November 11, 1930
Died
February 20, 2017
Zodiac sign
Scorpio
Birth year
1930

About Mildred Dresselhaus

Mildred Spiewak Dresselhaus, known as the "Queen of Carbon Science", was an American physicist, materials scientist, and nanotechnologist. She was an institute professor and professor of both physics and electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She also served as the president of the American Physical Society, the chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as the director of science in the US Department of Energy under the Bill Clinton Government. Dresselhaus won numerous awards including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, the Enrico Fermi Award, the Kavli Prize and the Vannevar Bush Award. As a grade school student, Dresselhaus' first 'teaching job' was tutoring a special-needs student for fifty cents a week, and she learned how to be a good teacher.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Mildred Dresselhaus was born

Mildred Dresselhaus was born in 1930. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1930

  • #1 song"Georgia on My Mind" – Hoagy Carmichael
  • Top movieAll Quiet on the Western Front
  • Best-selling bookCimarron – Edna Ferber

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentBobby Jones wins the Grand Slam of golf
  • Top headlineFirst FIFA World Cup held in Uruguay
  • Technology milestonePlanet Pluto discovered
  • Defining fadMiniature golf craze
  • Notable inventionScotch tape
  • World population2.07 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHerbert Hoover
  • Sports championPhiladelphia Athletics (World Series)
  • U.S. population123.2M

1930 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Mildred Dresselhaus's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19302026
Gas$0.20$3.45/gal
Average home$6,000$435,000
Average income$3,500$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population123.2M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.