Helen Quinn Research Paper

Helen Quinn, born on May 19th 1943, in Melbourne Australia, is a well-known female physicists who has had a successful life in the physics world. She is alive today and is still doing what she loves. Helen and her family moved to the United States in the early 1960’s and settled in San Francisco. What encouraged her to continue her life in physics, was that she was one of the 2% of women that were in her field of study. This is such an accomplishment and should be given more praise than what is given to her. She attended school in Victoria, Australia and then went on to college at the University of Melbourne before they moved to the United States. Once in the U.S. she decided to Stanford University. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford in the year 1967. At this point in her life, less than 2% of physicists were women (Baum). She then went on to do her postdoctoral work at the Deutsches Elktonen-Synchrotron which is located in Hamburg, Germany. After her postdoctoral work, she then spent the next 7 years of her life at Harvard

In the state of California, she works with elementary and high school teachers to help students understand physics and to help make it “fun” for them. She wants students to understand and think that there is more to physics than just science and research. As being the chair on the Board of Science Education of the National Research Council, she continues to help education. She is also on the chair for the National Academy of Sciences committee that developed and also released “A Framework for K-12 Science Education” (White). This program draws on current scientific research and includes research on the ways students learn science effectively. It also identifies the science that of all K- 12 students should know. This framework is now being used as the foundation for the Next Generation Science Standards in a collaborative, state-led