Author's Note xi
Prologue 1
1 Diamond in the Rough 9
2 Brains Plus Fun 29
3 To Teach or Not to Teach 41
4 Meeting of the Minds 57
5 A Scientist Blossoms 79
6 Mens Et Manus 101
7 Welcome to the Nanoword 125
8 Carbon Zoo 141
9 Leading by Example 171
10 An Indelible Legacy 195
Acknowledgments 219
Time Line of Key Milestones 223
Notes 227
Index 295
Maia Weinstock is an editor, writer, and producer of science and children's media whose work has appeared in Scientific American, Discover, SPACE.com, BrainPOP, and Scholastic's Science World. She is Deputy Editorial Director at MIT News, a lecturer at MIT on the history of women in STEM, and creator of LEGO's "Women of NASA."
Included in Physics Today's "Books and more that stood out in 2022"
list
“A striking portrait of a brilliant mind…This is a fascinating
introduction to a game-changing figure.”
—Publishers Weekly, STARRED review
“Weinstock’s biography skillfully makes use of interviews, oral
histories, and published materials. The fast- moving chronological
narrative offers a clear account of Dresselhaus’s scientific
research and valuable insights into the building of her successful
career as a woman scientist...Weinstock’s biography will appeal to
a wide audience in science, engineering, gender studies, social
studies of science, and sociology of science. Considerable
attention, both scholarly and popular, has been paid to the
dilemmas faced by women in the sciences. Carbon Queen provides an
inspiring story of one very capable woman’s response.”
—Physics Today
“With Carbon Queen, Weinstock does more than tell the story of a
brilliant scientist’s life; she transports you into a world of
curiosity and wonder, driven by enthusiasm and persistence. It’s a
world that I certainly want to be part of.”
—Physics World
“In Carbon Queen, Weinstock has pieced together Dresselhaus’s story
using decades of profiles, print interviews, oral histories
conducted with the scientist herself, and new interviews with her
contemporaries...Readers are also left with vivid images of the
woman herself, as a child on her way to music school; as a
high-spirited teen, sneaking friends into the Hayden Planetarium;
and finally as a trailblazing scientist who, politely but always
with great effect, gave the academy hell for its dismal track
record with women.”
—Science
“Millie’s insatiable curiosity and open-mindedness is captured in
Maia Weinstock’s new book Carbon Queen, which offers a captivating
tale of the life of this remarkable nanoscience pioneer...Carbon
Queen does not only capture the journey into the personal and
professional life of an outstanding figure in carbon science, it is
a careful account of the evolution of societal attitudes towards
women from the 1950s to today. It will certainly prove a
stimulating read to those interested in the all-round struggles
faced by women in STEM.”
—Nature Physics
“Carbon Queen is Maia Weinstock’s account of the remarkable life of
nanoscience pioneer Mildred Dresselhaus, who, from the 1950s,
defied society’s expectations of women to become an influential
scientist and engineer.”
— New Scientist
“When the mathematically gifted but impecunious Mildred Spiewak
launched her academic career at Hunter College in 1948, she aimed
at no more than qualifying for “something better than work in a
zipper factory.” In chronicling the stunningly successful path that
Spiewak subsequently traversed as a research scientist, Weinstock
leaves readers grateful that this gifted woman found settings far
better than a zipper factory. We see how—before Spiewak joined her
life, her career, and her name to those of her husband, solid-state
theorist Gene Dresselhaus—she found her own footing as a fearless
female scientist under the mentorship of Rosalyn Sussman Yalow,
Nobel laureate in medicine. Though Weinstock takes readers into
some of the scientific complexities behind the revolutionary carbon
nanotubes that Mildred Dresselhaus developed, she also brings into
view the exceptionally multivalent personal relationships
Dresselhaus fashioned while bearing and caring for four children.
Readers see how the same energy and intellectual resourcefulness
that enabled Dresselhaus to perceive previously undetected
structural characteristics of graphite also helped her envision and
create an academic environment more open to and more supportive of
women, especially those from ethnic minorities. An exceptional
biography showcasing the achievements of a brilliant scientist who
broadened the range of the possible for women.”
— Booklist, STARRED review
"A spirited biography."
—Nature
"This lovely biography is completely accessible to non-scientists.
It both tells the story of a remarkable scientist and makes a
larger point about the perils of overlooking women in science."
—The Christian Century
"Readers both familiar and new to this woman scientist's life and
work will enjoy getting to know her better through this book."
–CHOICE
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