Millie: Teacher, Mentor, Thesis Advisor

James C. Tsang

James C. Tsang
Student '67-'68, TA '68-'69, PhD '69-'73

Photo courtesy of Marianne Dresselhaus Cooper

Millie as teacher (“to teach EE's solid state physics” ihtfp)

Millie as mentor (when I learned to cook by cooking)

I used to come over to Millie’s house to practice cooking. Millie was always very encouraging! Millie’s kids all fondly remember the times that “Uncle Jim” came over to cook.

The lasagna was a staple of her group/floor parties from '68-'73, and the suckling pig came from her butcher around 1971. Both from NY Times Cookbook.

Jim Tsang serves his lasagna at a group party. Photo courtesy of Marianne Dresselhaus Cooper

Millie as thesis advisor

The inspiration for my thesis topic came from reading Mike Oliver’s thesis, which Millie gave me. I suggested that doing Raman scattering on Mike Oliver’s samples might be interesting, but I needed to know if Ben Lex’s Raman system was free — since Tim Hart had used that setup to do the experiments for his thesis. Millie let me know that the system was, indeed, free. I felt empowered because I had fellowship support, so I went ahead!

Millie and Gene with the kids at a conference. Photo courtesy of the Dresselhaus Family

A Millie comment about concerns on her becoming a professor with young children in 1967: “raising small children is good preparation for training graduate students...” (Endicott House ~1984)