Helen Brand

Helen is a beamline scientist at the Australian Synchrotron. She supports users from many fields of science to carry out experiments to investigate the structure of materials.

Helen is a Planetary Geologist by training. She started her research career by investigating how the crystal structure of planetary materials can influence the geology that we see on the surface of icy moons in the outer Solar System. Subsequently, she investigated how minerals grow on Mars with CSIRO before joining the Synchrotron.

In the last few years Helen has been able to diversify her research. This has included collecting meteorites in the Nullarbor and developing new analysis methods using the synchrotron to unlock the secrets of the early solar system, as well as helping identify pigments in some of the oldest Aboriginal rock art.