Helen Thom Edwards (born 1936) is an American physicist. She led the effort to design and build the Tevatron, then the world's highest energy particle accelerator and the first high-energy accelerator completely based on superconducting magnets. The Tevatron was one of the first high-energy antiproton-proton colliders. It requires the storage of antiprotons for days in order to produce the luminosity necessary for the experimental program at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory which has resulted in important new discoveries in physics such as the top quark. Her technical decisions were critical to the success of the Tevatron project. The HERA and the Large Hadron Collider are based on the technology pioneered at the Tevatron.
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John Peoples (2006), "Helen T. Edwards" in OUT OF THE SHADOWS: Contributions of 20th Century Women to Physics Nina Byers and Gary Williams, ed., Cambridge University Press ISBN 0-5218-2197-1