Helen Rhoda Arnold Quinn
Personal Information
Born: 1943
Country of Birth: Australia
Nationality: Autralian; USA
Ethnicity: White
Education
University of Melbourne-transferred to Stanford; Stanford University BA Physics 1963 MS Physics 1964 PhD Theoretical Physics 1967
Professional Life
Field of Study: Particle Physics; Educator
Institution/Corporation: Stanford University; Harvard University
Degrees & Memberships: Honorary Degree: Australian National University (2018) University of Notre Dame (2002); Member: Chair Board on Science Education of the National Academy of Sciences (2003) American Physical Society (1984) National Academy of Sciences American Philosophical Society (2016) Fellow American Academy of Arts & Sciences (1998)
Awards & Achievements
Awards: 2000 Dirac Medal International Center for Theoretical Physics; 2005 Order of Australia; 2008 Oskar Klein Medal Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; 2013 J.J. Sakurai Prize American Physical Society; 2016 Karl Taylor Compton Medal American Institute of Physics; 2018 Benjamin Franklin Medal Franklin Institute; 2017 inducted into Avenue of Excellence Tintern Grammar
Achievements: 1988 co-founded & president of Contemporary Physics Education Program (CPEP) & helped design its chart of Fundamental Particles & Interactions which can be found hanging next to the Periodic Table chart in many science classrooms
Is a leading research scientist in the field of particle physics, a traditionally male field
Her major contribution is the Peccei-Quinn theory which implies a corresponding symmetry of nature (AXION as a possible source of dark matter)
Contributed to the search for a unified theory for the 3 types of particle interactions (strong, electromagnetic, & weak)
Chair of the Board of School Education that produced "A Framework for K-12 Science Education" that was the basis for the Next Generation Science Standards adopted by 30 States & the District of Columbia
Grew up in Australia; came to the US to attend Stanford University for a PhD (obtained in 1967) at a time when less than 2% of physicists were female
Did her postdoc work in Germany
She showed how quarks can be used to predict certain aspects of hadrons, now known as quark-hadron duality
Helped design the chart of Fundamental Particles & Interactions that often appear in classrooms next to charts of the Periodic Table