Loading AI tools
Canadian theoretical physicist (1940–2017) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Helen Sarah Freedhoff (January 9, 1940 – June 10, 2017) was a Canadian theoretical physicist who studied the interaction of light with atoms. She gained her doctorate at the University of Toronto in 1965 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Imperial College in London. Freedhoff was the first woman appointed as a physics professor at York University in Toronto, and is believed to have been the only woman professor of theoretical physics in Canada at the time.
Helen Freedhoff | |
|---|---|
Helen Freedhoff, 1961 | |
| Born | Helen Sarah Goodman January 9, 1940 |
| Died | June 10, 2017 (aged 77) |
| Education | Harbord Collegiate Institute |
| Alma mater | University of Toronto |
| Known for |
|
| Spouse | Stephen Freedhoff |
| Children |
|
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Theoretical physics |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Theory of dipole-dipole interaction in coherent radiation processes (1965) |
| Notable students | Terry Rudolph (PBR theorem) |
Helen Freedhoff was born Helen Sarah Goodman in Toronto in on 9 January 1940.[1][2] Her parents were Ethel (Kohl) and Sholom Goodman and she had two brothers, David and Irving.[1] Her nickname was "Henchy".[3][1]
In 1957 she graduated from Harbord Collegiate Institute, a downtown public high school with predominantly Jewish students and a history of many earlier notable alumni.[3] Pursuing an academic career in science was unusual for a woman in North America in the post-war 1950s, where young men entered science in great numbers and women were pressured to make way.[4] At Harbord, however, Freedhoff did not face opposition, recalling "In high school it never occurred to me that I would have to play dumb to get dates. Nobody ever really discouraged me. The teachers really encouraged me, and nobody taught me that there was anything wrong with having a career".[3]
Freedhoff enrolled in the Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry stream at the University of Toronto, one of around 10-15 women among 120 first year students.[5] Originally intending to study mathematics, she found that she preferred physics.[6] Freedhoff was the only woman in her year to major in physics, graduating with the highest marks and being awarded the Governor General's Gold Medal.[5] She did not feel professionally disadvantaged by being the only woman, and felt it could be an advantage to stand out.[6]
Freedhoff had summer jobs in Harold Johns' biophysics lab.[6] Johns was a pioneer of medical biophysics, developing cobalt radiation therapy for cancer in the 1940s.[7] Although she enjoyed her time there, and was interested in the work Harry Welsh was doing on lasers, laboratory work was not her forte.[6] Freedhoff was inspired by Jan Van Kranendonk, a theoretical physicist,[8] who encouraged her to undertake postgraduate studies under his supervision.[6] From then on, she dedicated her career to what she has described as "the exhilaration of scientific research"[9] and teaching. "Basic science," she wrote, "is indeed a high form of culture, no less so than music or literature because it is also useful".[9]
Although women gained nearly 20% of the doctoral degrees awarded in physics by the University of Toronto between 1890 and 1933, Freedhoff was only the second woman to gain a PhD in physics after 1934 at the University of Toronto, following Olga Mracek Mitchell in 1962.[5] Freedhoff earned her PhD in 1965 with a dissertation titled Theory of dipole-dipole interaction in coherent radiation processes.[10] Women were awarded only 5% of the physics doctorates at the University of Toronto between 1960 and 1975.[5]
Freedhoff was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the National Research Council of Canada, working at Imperial College, London, from 1965 to 1967.[6][11] She studied means of identifying molecular features of atoms trapped in metals with spectroscopy, work which was partly sponsored by the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research.[11]
While in London, she wrote to the physics department at York University in Toronto enquiring about job opportunities.[5] In 1967, she was appointed assistant professor in physics there, the university's first woman professor in physics and believed to be Canada's only woman professor in theoretical physics at that time.[12][6][13]
Other than a sabbatical year at the Department of Physics of Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa from 1986,[14][15] Freedhoff remained at York University until her retirement in 2005, having published over 40 research papers.[16][17] She also collaborated with physicists in Australia,[18] which led to Terry Rudolph undertaking his doctoral studies under Freedhoff's supervision in the 1990s.[19] He is a professor of physics at Imperial College,[20] and together with Matthew Pusey and Jonathan Barrett, one of the developers of the PBR theorem, an important development in quantum mechanics named for its three authors.[21] Rudolph, who is Erwin Schrödinger's grandson,[22] delivered one of the eulogies at Freedhoff's funeral.[23]
Freedhoff married Stephen Freedhoff when she was around 20.[1] Stephen Freedhoff had graduated with a bachelor of commerce from the University of Toronto in 1957, going on to a career as a chartered accountant and consultant.[13] They had a daughter, Michal Ilana Freedhoff, a son, Yoni Freedhoff, and seven grandchildren.[1] Michal Freedhoff gained a doctorate in solid state chemistry,[24] and went on to serve as a US Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow in the office of Ed Markey.[25] She subsequently worked in a variety of government environmental protection roles, and was appointed Assistant Administrator for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2021.[25] Yoni Freedhoff is an associate professor of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa and author.[26][1] Helen Freedhoff's personal pastimes included reading, playing piano, solving KenKen puzzles, and yoga.[1]
Helen Freedhoff died suddenly on 10 June 2017 at the family's cottage in Muskoka, Ontario, a lakeside area near Toronto.[2]
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.
