Helen Hopfield

Helen Hopfield
Born
Helen Staff

1899 (1899)
DiedJanuary 16, 1989(1989-01-16) (aged 89–90)
United States
Alma materMount Holyoke College
Known forHopfield model for the troposphere
SpouseJohn J. Hopfield
Children3, including John
Scientific career
FieldsAtmospheric physics
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Berkeley
Applied Physics Laboratory

Helen Hopfield (née Staff, 1899 – January 16, 1989) was an American physicist who worked at the Applied Physics Laboratory. Her contributions in atmospheric physics and orbital mechanics allowed for more precise satellite-tracking technologies. The Hopfield model to study the troposphere is named in her honor.

She was the wife of spectroscopist John J. Hopfield, also a physicist known for his research on ultraviolet spectroscopy, and the mother of John Joseph, Jr., a winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics.