Katharine Gebbie

Born on 4 July 1932 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Katharine Blodgett Gebbie was an astrophysicist who spearheaded one of NIST’s most scientifically fruitful laboratories. She was named after her aunt, the materials scientist Katharine Burr Blodgett . After earning her PhD in physics from University College London in 1964, Gebbie went to work as a postdoc at JILA, a joint institute managed by NIST and the University of Colorado Boulder. In 1968 she joined the staff of NIST’s quantum physics division (QPD). Her research focused on such topics as planetary nebulae and stellar atmospheres. She moved into management in 1981, when she became a scientific assistant in NIST’s National Measurement Laboratory in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Over the next decade, she alternated between Colorado and Maryland, becoming chief of the QPD in 1985; director of NIST’s new Center for Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics in Gaithersburg in 1989; and, finally in 1990, founding director of NIST’s Physics Laboratory, which later became the Physical Measurement Laboratory, where she would remain for the next two decades and would supervise and mentor four physics Nobel laureates. She was also instrumental in helping create the Joint Quantum Institute, a research partnership between NIST and the University of Maryland, in 2006. Gebbie worked to create undergraduate opportunities, such as NIST’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship program, and advocated for women and other underrepresented groups in science. Over her career, Gebbie received many honors and awards, including the Department of Commerce Gold Medal, the 2002 Service to America Medal from the Partnership for Public Service, the Presidential Rank Award in 2006, and the Government Women’s Visionary Leadership Award in 2006. She was also a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Physical Society, and the Washington Academy of Sciences. She served as vice president of the International Committee for Weights and Measures from 1993 to 1999. Gebbie died in 2016 at age 84. (Photo from Katharine Gebbie, courtesy AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives.)

Date in History: 4 July 1932