Anne Helmenstine, Ph.D., is a stay-at-home-mom with a broad scientific and medical background. She loves online chatting and surfing the internet...if the topic is science, so much the better!

Experience: Anne has tutored and taught chemistry at the high school, college, and graduate level. Her doctoral work centered around developing ultra-sensitive chemical detection and medical diagnostic tests at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She has worked abstracting/indexing scientific literature for the Department of Energy, including abstracts for the American Chemical Society and Russian publications in ceramics, analytical chemistry, metallurgy, polymer chemistry, and atmospheric chemistry. As a college professor, she taught the biological sciences, while also overseeing biochemistry and organic chemistry. Anne is taking a break from medical school to care for her four young children, although she still performs scientific research as a hobby.

Education: Dr. Helmenstine has bachelor of arts degrees in physics and mathematics with a minor in chemistry from Hastings College in Nebraska and a doctorate of philosophy in biomedical sciences from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

From Anne: "Chemistry is part of everyone's life, from cooking and cleaning to the latest computer chip technology and vaccine development. It doesn't have to be intimidating and it doesn't have to be hard to understand."