Dresselhaus studied physics at
University of California, Berkeley, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1951 and his doctorate in 1955. At Berkeley he worked under the supervision of
Charles Kittel and
Arthur F. Kip on early
cyclotron resonance experiments on
semiconductors and
semimetals. As a postdoc Dresselhaus was for the academic year 1955–1956 an instructor at the
University of Chicago. From 1956 to 1960 he was an assistant professor at
Cornell University. He was also a consultant to
General Electric Research Laboratories from 1956 to 1960 and to the
Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1958 to 1960. From 1960 he worked at the
Lincoln Laboratory of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and from 1977 at the Francis Bitter National Magnetic Laboratory of MIT. He was also a professor of physics at MIT. He did research on
carbon nanotubes,
fullerenes,
electronic energy bands in solids, surface impedance of metals,
excitons in insulators, electronic surface states, optical properties of solids, and
high-temperature superconductivity. In 1958 he married the physicist
Mildred Dresselhaus (née Spiewak) — for many years the couple extensively collaborated and published their scientific findings. They had a daughter and three sons. == Honors and awards ==