Harriet Brooks

Harriet Brooks
Harriet Brooks (1876-1933)
Born	July 2, 1876 Exeter, Ontario
Died	April 17, 1933 (aged 56)
Nationality	Canadian
Fields	Nuclear physics
Institutions	Barnard College McGill University
Alma mater	McGill University
Academic advisors	Ernest Rutherford
Known for	Discoverer of atomic recoil

Harriet Brooks (July 2, 1876 – April 17, 1933) was the first Canadian female nuclear physicist. She is most famous for her research on nuclear transmutations and radioactivity. Ernest Rutherford, who guided her graduate work, regarded her as being next to Marie Curie in the calibre of her aptitude. She was among the first persons to discover radon and to try to determine its atomic mass.

Harriet Brooks was born Exeter, Ontario in 1876 and graduated with B.A. in mathematics and natural philosophy from McGill University in 1898.

She was the first graduate student of Ernest Rutherford (then professor at McGill University), under whom she worked immediately after graduating. With him she worked on electricity and magnetism for her master's degree in 1901. She was the first ever woman at McGill to receive a master's degree. Following her Master's she was a fellow a Bryn Mawr, and subsequently took a fellowship at Cambridge.

After her Master's again under Rutherford she also did a series of experiments to determine the nature of the radioactive emissions from thorium. These experiments served as the foundation for the development of nuclear science.

For a brief period she also worked under the supervision of Marie Curie.

In 1904 Brooks was appointed to the faculty of Barnard College and in 1907 she married Frank Pitcher and left the field of physics.