IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2016 - 20

much wanted a nuclear-physics-based research position, but no university would
take a chance on a young Jewish woman.
She took the job at Hunter.
This was the early 1940s, the middle
of World War II. The Manhattan Project
was underway. Around this time, under
the football stands at Stagg Field out at
the University of Chicago, Enrico Fermi
and his team of scientists were working
on creating the first controlled nuclear
chain reaction, Chicago Pile-1.
Yalow would only teach at Hunter for
one semester before moving on to a physicist job at the Bronx Veterans Hospital,
which Dresselhaus calls "about the lowest
level job that you might think of." But it
was there that Yalow discovered some"At age 75, I said I was going to retire," Dresselhaus says. "But it's ten years
thing very important. "She was a physlater, and I haven't done that yet."
ics person trying to work with biology,
not like today, where we have the field of
biophysics," Dresselhaus explains. Working with Dr. Solomon A. Berson they
It's not that her family discouraged
Dresselhaus's older brother was a
discovered the radioimmunoassay (RIA),
her, she says, but they just didn't know
musical prodigy, earning himself a schola precise way to measure insulin and horanything about science. What they underarship to the Greenwich Village Music
mones in the blood. This discovery would
stood was teaching, which they believed
School. A few years later, a young Dresbreak open the field of medical physics
was a respected career that would provide
selhaus, just four or five years old, also
and usher in a new era in endocrinology.
Dresselhaus with security and opportunity.
received a violin scholarship, although
Dresselhaus's mentor would become
she downplays it with her characteristic
the second woman to win the Nobel Prize
modesty. "I just went along for the ride,
Nobel Prize-Winning Mentors
in Medicine. "Nevertheless, when I gave
and the teachers thought I might be giftIt didn't take long before teachers were
the most minor talk, when she knew I
ed too," she says.
telling Dresselhaus that she was in the wrong
was doing anything whatsoever, Rosalyn
Dresselhaus was gifted enough, and
field. "I could teach science, of course, if
would show up," Dresselhaus says.
today she still loves the violin. But what
I wanted to, but they thought I should
With Yalow's encouragealso happened was that Dresselhaus's
spend more of my time finding
ment, Dresselhaus went on
brother swung open a door for her that
what science I was good at."
to earn her master's dewent way beyond music. The parents at
One of these teachFrom
gree from Radcliffe,
the music school knew about many eduers was a young sciher own
but her time there
cational opportunities beyond the Bronx,
entist named Rosaexperience, she knows
was not particuand one of these was Hunter High School.
lyn Yalow. Yalow
larly productive
that fellowship money
At the time, Hunter High School was
had graduated
or even coman all-girls school. "An exceptional place,
from Hunter
and support can have a big
fortable, and
highly motivating," Dresselhaus calls it.
College magna
impact in fields that don't
she eagerly
Hunter High School and Hunter College
cum laude with
have many women, so when
headed off to
stood together on a single city block, their
a B.A. degree
Dresselhaus won the Kavli
the University
shared focus was to prepare young womin physics and
of Chicago for a
en to become school teachers. "Gifted stuchemistry, and
Prize, she gave the
Ph.D. program. It
dents from the college came walking ten
she earned her
million-dollar purse
was the mid-1950s,
feet, and they were in the high school,"
Ph.D. degree in nuback to MIT.
and Enrico Fermi was
Dresselhaus says. "Effortless. I thought,
clear physics at the Unistill there. At the University
well, that's what I'm going to do."
versity of Illinois. She very

IEEE womEn In EngInEErIng magazInE

june 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2016