Cheers to Millie Dresselhaus

Millie Dresselhaus is the 2007 North America Laureate of the L'Oreal-UNESCO Award "for her research on solid state materials, including conceptualizing the creation of carbon nanotubes."

That may not be a household name, but Millie Dresselhaus is a well-respected materials science professor at MIT with an impressive lifetime record of publication, education, invention, and service to science. She rose through the ranks at a time when women were extremely uncommon in professional science. In addition, she is married and has raised five children.

In her own words, from an article about her award:

"My motivation for a scientific career was my love for science," says Mildred Dresselhaus, who entered college thinking she would become a schoolteacher. That changed during her sophomore year when she took a class in modern physics taught by Rosalyn Yalow, who was later awarded a Nobel Prize for her work in medical physics. "My interest in the subject and encouragement from Professor Yalow resulted in my decision to follow a scientific career," she says.

"When I got my PhD, women represented 2% of the physics profession and now we are on the order of 20%. It used to be difficult for women to have the opportunity to do high level research. The barriers have come down to a large degree, but the playing field is still not quite level. Competition in our field has become more intense and this affects young women more than men in their early careers, when they are trying to start a family. The large demands of a significant research career in science impede women more than men."

What advice would Mildred Dresselhaus give to young women scientists? "A scientific career is extremely rewarding, and if I had to do it all over again I would follow the same course. The rewards are different at every stage. I still have the same fascination for science that I had when I was young."

Congratulations!! And thank you.

PlanetFesto -- do your piece

Here's a chance for a little creativity. Express your love for Planet Earth:

http://www.planetfesto.org

It's a giant virtual ribbon made of pieces created by individuals all over the globe (and from as many countries as possible). With 266 million entries, it will circle the Earth.

Star panel

I'm just back from an intensive weekend at BGI (when we go for 4 days/month to have class in person). We always have a few ExIRs (Executives in Residence) and EIRs (Entrepreneurs in Residence) staying with us for the weekend. They hang out, eat meals with us, attend classes with us, and give the Friday night "Fireside Chat," which is basically a panel discussion led first by Gifford (school founder) and then opened up to everyone.

This month, we had an awesome line-up. We had Ben Packard-- Corporate Social Responsibility officer for Starbucks; Amy Hall-- Director of Social Consciousness at Eileen Fisher; and Kim Jordan-- CEO of New Belgium Brewery. As Gif said, "Aren't we lucky?"

They made a great panel. From a craft brewery to a specialty women's clothing company to a global coffee giant, they spanned a wide range of company types. And yet, they were all concerned with the social and environmental aspects of business: How do you create and maintain good values in the workplace, and how do you grow responsibly? Kim Jordan talked about how they have names for everything at their office, including some of the doors and waste containers. Ben Packard took a little heat for some of the recent issues with coffee bean branding in Ethiopia, but handled it well. Amy Hall described a surprising corporate culture-- they have yet to install a company intranet at Eileen Fisher. And job applicants sometimes get interviewed by 6 or 7 people at once. The three managed to play off each other quite well too, engaging in their own dialogue and learning from each other during the evening.

I was lucky enough to sit with Ben Packard at lunch one day. We talked about the preparation of their CSR report, which we had analyzed in a class last quarter. It turns out that the Starbucks report fared pretty well against some of the others we looked at -- The Gap, BP, and Diageo. But Ben told me that Diageo, whose report scored quite low in our rating, is actually doing quite a lot of good CSR work. I found it interesting that their report did not accurately convey this because obviously all companies try to make their CSR reports look convincing and positive.

And Kim Jordan brought Fat Tire Ale. Good deal!

Turning the Ship

Joel Makower of GreenBiz.com is starting up what looks like an interesting online discussion forum called Turning the Ship (running from now through March 13). From his blog entry:

GreenBiz.com is partnering with Harvard University Graduate School of Design and The Clark Group to produce Turning the Ship, a unique online conversation exploring options for encouraging environmentally sustainable business practices among U.S. businesses.

Each week between now and March 13, the dialogue will feature essays by some of the world’s leading thinkers on the environmental transformation of the U.S. economy, from climate change and U.S. business practices, to product branding and certification, to the latest developments in the fields of green chemistry and industrial ecology.

You are encouraged to add your comments, observations, and insights to each of these essays. The result, we hope, will be a robust conversation about the future of business. Please join in!

Link to the essays and conversations: http://www.greenbiz.com/ship/. More info is available at Turning the Ship. I am looking forward to seeing the essays and dialogue that emerge. This has the potential to be a pretty interesting conversation.