Professor of the Graduate School
email: hoffman@lbl.gov
office: LBL 70-319
phone: 510.486.4474
Research Group
Recent Publications
Curriculum Vitae (PDF)
Research Interests
Nuclear Chemistry Actinide, Transactinides & Superheavy Elements
Rapid chemical separation of short-lived fission products; separation chemistry of lanthanide, actinide and transactinide elements; search for heavy elements in nature; studies of radionuclide migration in geologic media; studies of spontaneous fission; heavy ion reactions; production reactions for new neutron-rich heavy element isotopes; atom-at-a-time studies of chemical and nuclear properties of the heaviest elements including first chemical studies of elements 106 (seaborgium) through 108 (hassium); use of automated systems such as SISAK and its flowing liquid-scintillation system to study chemical properties of very short-lived isotopes; atom-at-a-time studies of chemical and nuclear properties of actinides and transactinides; use of the Berkeley Gas-filled Separatr (BGS) as preseparator for chemical studies and identification of new heavy isotopes and elements and elucidation of their nuclear decay properties.
She has helped organize many national and international symposia in these fields as well as on the status of women in science.
Biography
— Born: Terril, Iowa
— B.S., Chemistry/Math, Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa, 1948
— Ph.D., Physical (Nuclear) Chemistry, Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa, 1951
— Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Chemist, 1952-53
— Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 1953-78
Staff member, Project Leader, Associate Group Leader
— Guggenheim Fellow, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, University of California, 1978-79
— Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, 1979-84
Division Leader, Chemistry-Nuclear Chemistry Division, 1979-82
Division Leader, Isotope and Nuclear Chemistry Division, 1982-84
— University of California, Department of Chemistry, Berkeley, California 1984-present
Professor of Chemistry (Nuclear), 1984-91
Professor Emerita, 1991-93
Professor of the Graduate School, 1994-present
— Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Nuclear Science Division, 1984-present
Faculty Sr. Scientist & Group Leader, Heavy Element Nuclear & Radiochemistry, 1984-96
Faculty Sr. Scientist & Co-Group Leader, 1996-2001
Faculty Sr. Scientist, Nuclear Science Division, 2002-present
— LLNL Seaborg Institute for Transactinium Science, Charter Director, 1991-96, Senior Research Advisor, 1996-present
— Senior NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship, Oslo, Norway, 1964-65
— Guest lecturer, Institute of Atomic Energy, Beijing, Lanzhou, Peoples Republic of China, 1982
— Japan Society for Promotion of Science Fellowship (July-August),
1987
— Director's Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1990
— ACS Representative and invited lecturer at Polish Chemical Society meeting in honor of 100th Anniversary of the discovery of radium and polonium by Marie Sklowdoska Curie, Wroclaw, Poland, 1998
— Welch Foundation Lecturer, March 2001
— Lecturer for Actinide Science Summer School sponsored by Seaborg Institute for Transactinium Science, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory & Lecturer for ACS Division of Nuclear Chemistry & Technology sponsored summer schools in Nuclear & Radiochemistry, San Jose State University, 1998-2005
— Invited presentation on "The Crisis in Radiochemistry and Nuclear Chemistry Education" for
the Nuclear Forensics Advisory Panel, Washington, DC,January 2008