Renowned nuclear chemist Darleane Hoffman, who advanced our understanding of the chemical and nuclear properties of transuranic elements and mentored and helped advance the careers of dozens of young women in her field, passed away Sept. 4. She spent the majority of her career at Berkeley Lab, UC Berkeley, and Los Alamos National Lab. Here, she used the 88-inch cyclotron to help create a number of rare heavy elements and was a leading member of the team that discovered element 106, which the team named “seaborgium” after her close colleague Glenn Seaborg, among other achievements.
She received the Enrico Fermi Presidential Award in 2023. The ceremony, held in the B50 auditorium, was attended by Darleane and her family. You can watch this video retrospective which was produced for the ceremony, and learn more about her career in this message from Deputy Lab Director for Research Carol Burns.
