Melissa Franklin

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Melissa Franklin is an experimental particle physicist and professor at Harvard University. While working at the Fermi National Acceleration Laboratory in Chicago, her team found some of the first evidence for the existence of the top quark. Franklin was the first woman to gain tenure in physics at Harvard. As of 2004, she is studying proton-antiproton collisions.

[edit] Early history

Franklin grew up in Toronto, Canada, and attended the University of Toronto. She earned her physics PhD from Stanford University in 1982 and later worked at Fermilab in Chicago, before coming to Harvard.

[edit] Trivia

In addition to her other work, Franklin has been a DJ and played a key role in the murky history of penguin diagrams. Her mother, Elsa Franklin, was the long-time producer and manager of Pierre Berton.

[edit] External links

• Melissa Franklin's Harvard faculty webpage
• Profile on Discovering Women, a PBS series about women scientists.
• Public lecture by Prof Franklin - includes audio, slides