T. M. Helliwell taught at Harvey Mudd College for more than forty years, as well as serving in several administrative roles, including Physics Department Chair. He received two National Science Foundation fellowships, was awarded the Henry T. Mudd Prize for service to the college in 1997, and served as a consultant at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is the author or co-author of more than forty research papers on general relativity, cosmology, and quantum theory, and the author of two textbooks on special relativity.