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Frances Hellman |
![]() When she embarked on this career, Hellman imagined that physicists had ``purely intellectual" and ``solitary" lives. She has been pleased to find instead that her responsibilities are diverse (including teaching, working in the lab, doing research, sitting on committees) and that the life of a scientist is surprisingly social. She has also selected an area of concentration--Condensed Matter Physics--which has practical applications. Her research involves studying how electrons work through a magnetic field, and how that effects their ability to carry an electric current. The materials she studies are useful for magnetic recording; for example, that recent innovation in recording technology, the minidisk, combines lasers and magnetics. When asked about her source of inspiration, Hellman explains that because ideas aren't generated in a vacuum, she usually puts a lot of information in her brain and lets it percolate. She considers the creative-inventive process to be ``synergystic". In addition to her work as a scientist and academic, Hellman is an avid soccer player, a baseball enthusiast (she and her husband have season tickets to the Padres), and a passionate theater-goer. She has three beautiful Persian cats and no children. |