Helena Aksela (born 1947,

Perho Perho is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Central Ostrobothnia region. The distance between Perho and the regional center Kokkola is about . The municipality has a population of () and ...

) is a Finnish physicistKaleva 7.8.2000
visited 20.7.2018 and emeritus professor at the

University of Oulu The University of Oulu ( fi, Oulun yliopisto) is one of the largest universities in Finland, located in the city of Oulu. It was founded on July 8, 1958. The university has around 13,000 students and 2,900 staff. 21 International Master's P ...

. She was the first woman to be appointed a professor of physics in Finland. Aksela gained her doctorate from the University of Oulu in 1980. The electron spectroscopy group led by Aksela was, in the 1990s, one of the first groups to experimentally apply the

Auger Auger may refer to: Engineering * Wood auger, a drill for making holes in wood (or in the ground) ** Auger bit, a drill bit * Auger conveyor, a device for moving material by means of a rotating helical flighting * Auger (platform), the world's f ...

resonant Raman effect. She was named a professor at the University of Oulu in 2000, in the field of atomic and molecular physics. In 2001 she was appointed Academy Professor. Later she has worked in the department of physical sciences

electron spectroscopy Electron spectroscopy refers to a group formed by techniques based on the analysis of the energies of emitted electrons such as Photoelectric effect, photoelectrons and Auger electrons. This group includes X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), wh ...

research group. She was a member of the

Academy of Finland The Academy of Finland ( fi, Suomen Akatemia, sv, Finlands Akademi) is a governmental funding body for scientific research in Finland. It is based in Helsinki. Yearly, the Academy administers over 260 million euros to Finnish research activities. O ...

Research Council for Natural Sciences and Engineering from 2007 to 2009. Aksela was made a Fellow of the Finnish Physical Society in 2013, based on her pioneering research work involving

photoemission spectroscopy Photoemission spectroscopy (PES), also known as photoelectron spectroscopy, refers to energy measurement of electrons emitted from solids, gases or liquids by the photoelectric effect, in order to determine the binding energies of electrons in th ...

with

synchrotron A synchrotron is a particular type of cyclic particle accelerator, descended from the cyclotron, in which the accelerating particle beam travels around a fixed closed-loop path. The magnetic field which bends the particle beam into its closed p ...

s, and associated researcher training, in addition to her active role in science politics. Aksela is married to professor Seppo Aksela.

Awards and recognition

* Award of the Pentti Kaitera fund, 2004 *

Finnish Academy of Science and Letters The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters (Finnish ''Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia''; Latin ''Academia Scientiarum Fennica'') is a Finnish learned society. It was founded in 1908 and is thus the second oldest academy in Finland. The oldest is the Fi ...

member from 2002Kotimaiset jäsenet. Suomalainen tiedeakatemia 31.10.2016.
visited 24.7.2018 * Theodor Homén Prize in 2019, awarded by the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aksela, Helena 20th-century Finnish physicists Members of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters Academic staff of the University of Oulu 1947 births Living people Finnish women scientists 21st-century Finnish physicists