Farmingdale State College Energy Long Island 2007 Conference Welcomed MILDRED DRESSELHAUS & FRITZ HENN
Dedicated to Energy Research: Forefront and Challenges

Mildred Dresselhaus, Institute Professor of Electrical Engineering and Physics at MIT, was keynote speaker on the first day of Farmingdale State College’s Energy Long Island 2007 Conference where Networking® magazine caught up with her.

Born and raised in New York City, Professor Dresselhaus received her PhD degree at the University of Chicago in 1958. She joined the MIT faculty in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in 1967 and the Department of Physics in 1983. She was named Institute Professor in 1985. Her research has covered a wide range of problems in the physics of solids with special attention to nanoscience.

Dresselhaus is currently chair of the Governing Board of the American Institute of Physics. She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and has received numerous awards, including the US National Medal of Science and holds 23 honorary doctorates worldwide. She served as the director of the Office of Science at the US Department of Energy in 2000–2001.

Dresselhaus has co-authored four books on carbon science. Her research interests are in electronic materials, particularly in nano-science and nano-technology, with special regard to carbon related materials, novel forms of carbon, including fullerenes, carbon nano-tubes, porous carbons, activated carbons and carbon aerogels, as well as other nanostructures, such as bismuth nano-wires and the use of nanostructures in low dimensional thermoelectricity.

Dr. Fritz Henn, associate director for Life Sciences at Brookhaven National Laboratory was the keynote speaker on the second day of Farmingdale State College’s Energy Long Island 2007 Conference. Dr. Henn oversees the Laboratory's Biology and Medical Departments, which together have 180 employees and a yearly budget of $33 million.

Research in the life sciences at Brookhaven includes sophisticated imaging techniques, basic studies on DNA, proteins, molecular and cellular mechanisms, and biomedical and environmental applications based on this research.

Dr. Henn earned a PhD in physiological chemistry from The Johns Hopkins University in 1967, and an MD from the University of Virginia in 1971. He performed his residency in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine from 1971 to 1974. Dr. Henn began his career at the University of Iowa College of Medicine, and, in 1982, he joined Stony Brook University (SBU) where he became Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine. From 1982 to 1983, he was director of the Long Island Research Institute, NYS Office of Mental Health, and, from 1983 to 1994, he was Director for SBU's Institute for Mental Health Research. He moved to Germany in 1994, becoming a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Central Institute of Mental Health, positions he held until he joined Brookhaven.