Frances Hellman

She is the daughter of Warren and Chris Hellman. In her 2022 presidential address, she recalled that a high-school teacher sparked her interest in the cosmos and an undergraduate adviser helped her persist through early difficulties in physics.⁠[1][2]

She earned a physics BA from Dartmouth in 1978 and an applied-physics PhD from Stanford in 1985.⁠[3]

After her doctorate, she spent two years at AT&T Bell Labs researching thin-film magnetism.⁠[4]

She joined UC San Diego as an assistant professor in 1987, received tenure in 1994 and became a full professor in 2000.⁠[4]

Her experience of a gap between start-up funding and outside grants inspired her parents to launch the Hellman Fellows Program at Berkeley and San Diego in 1995.⁠[5]

She became an APS Fellow in 1997.⁠[3]

She joined UC Berkeley’s Physics Department in January 2005.⁠[4]

The 2006 Joseph F. Keithley Award recognized her silicon microcalorimeters, which extended sensitive calorimetry to nanoscale science through micromachining.⁠[6]

The Chronicle reported unreported tax benefits involving Dynes’s then-wife Hellman remaining in the UCSD chancellor’s residence. Dynes cited her laboratory’s move to Berkeley. The regents’ chair stressed that the audit identified disclosure failures without implying wrongdoing by recipients.⁠[7][8]

She chaired Berkeley’s Physics Department from 2007 to 2013.⁠[3]

She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in physics in 2013.⁠[6]

Announced in 2014, her appointment as dean of Berkeley’s Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences took effect January 1, 2015. The university later announced her departure effective June 30, 2021.⁠[3][9][5]

In 2018, Frances and her three siblings made a $20 million matching gift through the Hellman Fellows Fund to endow Berkeley’s junior-faculty fellowships.⁠[10]

In 2020, the family established endowments for the Society of Hellman Fellows across UC’s ten campuses. Frances participated as president of the Hellman Fellows Fund.⁠[1][5]

As APS president in 2022, she advocated inclusion, scientific integrity and international collaboration. Her presidential address also discussed research-security policies and the accessibility benefits of hybrid meetings.⁠[2]

A Nature Materials paper coauthored with Paul Corbae and colleagues reported spin-momentum-locked surface states in amorphous Bi₂Se₃, providing experimental evidence in a material without long-range crystalline order.⁠[11]

Berkeley Physics listed her among retiring faculty in its 2023 welcome presentation. Her current faculty page identifies her as Professor of the Graduate School, and her group continues experimental condensed-matter research.⁠[12][4][13]

A Physical Review Letters study she coauthored found that hydrogenation reduced optical absorption and mechanical loss in amorphous silicon films. The authors proposed a route toward improved gravitational-wave-detector coatings, rather than reporting a deployed detector upgrade.⁠[14]

She received the Berkeley Citation in 2025.⁠[15]

In its 2026 announcement appointing Philippe Sion executive director, the Hellman Foundation identified her as board chair. The foundation plans to spend down and close by the end of 2034, while Hardly Strictly BluegrassHardly Strictly BluegrassHardly Strictly Bluegrass is a free outdoor music festival in San Francisco, founded by Warren Hellman in 2001. Held in Golden Gate Park, it expanded from bluegrass into American roots music and other styles and maintains an online performance archive.Open the full entry is intended to continue.⁠[16][17]

Her group uses microscale platforms on silicon-nitride membranes to measure small samples and studies amorphous materials and interfacial magnetism. Her science-education service has included COSMOS and San Francisco’s Exploratorium.⁠[13][6]

University of California, Berkeley: Official website: https://www.berkeley.edu/ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]

American Physical Society: Official website: https://www.aps.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[2]

Hellman Fellows Fund: Official website: https://www.hellmanfellows.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[5]

Hellman Foundation: Official website: https://www.hellmanfoundation.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[17]