Frances Hellman is a physicist who was dean of the division of mathematical and physical sciences at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

from 2015 until 2021. Her primary academic focus has been the study of the

thermodynamic Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of the ...

properties of novel solid materials, especially

thin film A thin film is a layer of material ranging from fractions of a nanometer (monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many ap ...

semiconducting A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

superconducting Superconductivity is a set of physical properties observed in certain materials where electrical resistance vanishes and magnetic flux fields are expelled from the material. Any material exhibiting these properties is a superconductor. Unlike ...

, and magnetic materials. She has served as chair of the physics department and holds a dual appointment in the materials science and engineering department.

Early life and education

Hellman was raised in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, where she attended the

Brearley School The Brearley School is an all-girls private school in New York City, located on the Upper East Side neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan. The school is divided into lower (kindergarten – grade 4), middle (grades 5–8) and upper (grades 9 ...

. She graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with high honors in physics from

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native A ...

in 1978. Hellman obtained her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

applied physics Applied physics is the application of physics to solve scientific or engineering problems. It is usually considered to be a bridge or a connection between physics and engineering. "Applied" is distinguished from "pure" by a subtle combination ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1985.

Career

After receiving her Ph.D., Hellman then served as a postdoctoral fellow at

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

from 1985-1987 focusing on thin film magnetism. She moved to San Diego, CA to become an assistant professor of physics at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...

1987, where she worked until 2004. She received tenure in 1994 and became a full professor in 2000. Hellman is a fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

(APS) and received their

Joseph F. Keithley Award For Advances in Measurement Science The Joseph F. Keithley Award For Advances in Measurement Science is an award of the American Physical Society (APS) that was first awarded in 1998. It is named in honor of Joseph F. Keithley, the founder of Keithley Instruments. The award is prese ...

in 2006. Hellman joined

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

's Physics Department in January 2005. She served as Chair of the Department from 2007 to 2013. In 2019, she was elected to be the 2020 Vice President of the American Physical Society and in 2022 became the President of APS.

Personal

Hellman is the daughter of Chris and

Warren Hellman F. Warren Hellman (July 25, 1934 – December 18, 2011) was an American investment banker and private equity investor, the co-founder of Hellman & Friedman, a multibillion-dollar private equity firm. Hellman also co-founded Hellman, Ferri Inve ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

. The Hellman family is involved philanthropically with a variety of causes, including the University of California. Frances Hellman married

Robert Dynes Robert Carr Dynes (born November 8, 1942) is a Canadian-American physicist, researcher, and academic administrator, and professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the former president of the University of California syste ...

, former UC President, in May 1998 and they divorced in 2006. In 2006 she met Warren Breslau. In 2009 they married.

References

External links

Frances Hellman
at

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hellman, Frances Living people American people of German-Jewish descent 21st-century American physicists Year of birth missing (living people) Stanford University alumni University of California, San Diego faculty University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Dartmouth College alumni Chapin School (Manhattan) alumni Scientists from New York (state) Hellman family Fellows of the American Physical Society