Helen Thom Edwards

Helen Thom Edwards (May 27, 1936 – June 21, 2016) was an American physicist. She is best known for her role as the lead scientist in the design and construction of the Tevatron at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, which was the most powerful particle collider in the world until 2009. The youngest of five siblings, Helen spent much of her early life in Pontiac, Michigan until her family moved to a ranch in Metamora, Michigan. Thom attended the Kingswood School (now the Cranbrook Schools) in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan until 1950, when she transferred to The Madeira School in McLean, Virginia. Thom pursued her undergraduate studies at Cornell University, where she earned a B.S. in physics in 1957. her doctoral studies under Boyce McDaniel in the Laboratory of Nuclear Studies at Cornell University. helping to develop the "resonant beam extraction" technique, which enabled physicists to extract high-energy beams from circular accelerators. and the most powerful particle collider in the world for 26 years. Using superconducting magnets to accelerate protons and antiprotons at 1 trillion electron volts (TeV), particles could reach 99.999954% of the speed of light.

On July 5, 1979, the US Department of Energy authorized the Tevatron's construction, and Leon M. Lederman, Fermilab's second director, placed Edwards in charge of the project. Physicist Dmitri Denisov, who helped update the Tevatron, notes that "The Tevatron is the particle physics equivalent of landing on the moon. We achieved something that, scientifically and technically, wasn't possible before." E. O. Lawrence Award, U.S. Department of Energy (1986) National Medal of Technology (1989) American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1996) Robert R. Wilson Prize for Achievement in the Physics of Particle Accelerators Recipient from the American Physical Society (2003)

Six years after Edwards's death, a bill was introduced in the US Senate and US House of Representatives in 2022 to rename Fermilab's Integrated Engineering Research Center in honor of the late Helen Edwards. Additionally, Fermilab established the Helen Edwards Summer Internship, which provides students studying physics and engineering in Europe with the opportunity to work with scientists at Fermilab.

Personal life Helen met Donald Edwards, a doctoral student at Cornell, while working in the Laboratory of Nuclear Studies during her master's program.

In 1992, Helen and Donald Edwards retired in Montana, "Injection and Stacking in the 30 To 7--GeV Storage Ring" (Jul 1973) "Injection and Extraction For the Energy Doubler" (Jul 1973) "Injection and Stacking in the Large Storage Rings" (Jul 1973) "Beam Extraction" (May 1974) "Proposal for Satellite Refrigeration Control Interface" (Sep 1979) "Design of the energy doubler" (Jan 1979) "The Energy Saver Test and Commissioning History" (Aug 1983) "The Tevatron Energy Doubler: A Superconducting Accelerator" (Dec 1985) "The Fermilab Tevatron and PBAR Source: Status Report" (Aug 1986) "The Fermilab Tevatron and Pbar Source Status Report" (Aug 1986) "The Superconducting Super Collider" (June 1990) "SSC design status" (1990) "Study on Beam Tube Vacuum with Consideration of Synchrotron Light, Potential Liner Intercept, and Collider Quad/Spool Coil Diameter" (Aug 1991) "Progress report on the TESLA test facility" (May 1993) "TESLA parameters update: A Progress report on the TESLA collider design" (1994) "A Report on Fermilab SRF Activities and Proposals" (Nov 1999) "The superconducting TESLA cavities" (Mar 2000) "RF Superconductivity: Enabling Technology for the Future" (May 2003) "International Linear Collider Reference Design Report Volume 2: Physics at the ILC" (Sep 2007) "Operation of a free-electron laser from the extreme ultraviolet to the water window" (2007)