Helen Vaughn Michel (born 1932) is an American chemist best known for her efforts in fields including

analytical chemistry Analytical skill, Analytical chemistry studies and uses instruments and methods to Separation process, separate, identify, and Quantification (science), quantify matter. In practice, separation, identification or quantification may constitute t ...

and

archaeological science Archaeological science consists of the application of scientific techniques to the analysis of archaeological materials and sites. It is related to methodologies of archaeology. Martinón-Torres and Killick distinguish ‘scientific archaeology ...

, and specific processes such as

neutron activation analysis Neutron activation analysis (NAA) is a nuclear reaction, nuclear process used for determining the concentrations of chemical element, elements in many materials. NAA allows discrete Sampling (statistics), sampling of elements as it disregards the ...

and

radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotop ...

. Her work with

Frank Asaro Frank Asaro (born Francesco Asaro, July 31, 1927 – June 10, 2014) was an Emeritus Senior Scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory associated with the University of California at Berkeley. He is best known as the chemist who discove ...

at the

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in the Berkeley Hills, hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established i ...

at the University of California (Berkeley) is particularly noteworthy as it includes the dating of Drake's Plate of Brass as well as the

Alvarez hypothesis The Alvarez hypothesis posits that the Extinction event, mass extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs and many other living things during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event was caused by the Impact event, impact of a large asteroid on the Ea ...

, the hypothesis that posits the

Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event The Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event, also known as the K–T extinction, was the extinction event, mass extinction of three-quarters of the plant and animal species on Earth approximately 66 million years ago. The event cau ...

. Michel retired from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 1990.

References

Living people 1932 births 21st-century American chemists University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory people American women chemists 21st-century American women scientists {{US-chemist-stub