Katharine Burr Blodgett
 Katharine Burr Blodgett was born in 1898 in Schenectady, New York.  Everyone who knew her called Katharine, Katie.  When she was young she attended some of the finest private schools and received a very good education.  From a very young age she showed potential in math.  She graduated from high school at the age of fifteen and won a scholarship to Bryn Mawr College.  Her interest in physics started when she attended college.  She had a physics professor that inspired her.
 During her senior year she went back to where she was born to see where her father worked.  He worked at General Electric.  Blodgett went on a tour there and a chemist named Irving Lengmuir showed her around.  Irving Lengmuir saw Blodgettís ability and advised her to further her scientific education.
 Blodgett did indeed follow his advice, and in 1917 she graduated from Bryn Mawr and went right over to the University of Chicago.  There she got her masterís degree in chemistry.  This knowledge helped her invent gas masks that saved peopleís lives during World War II.  After she received her masterís, General Electric hired her right away.  She was the first woman in the companiesí history to work as a research scientist.  From 1918 to 1924 Blodgett worked with Irving Langmuir.  Together they wrote some important papers.  Langmuir was the one that told her to get a doctorate.  She pursued that and went to Cambridge University in England.  She was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in physics from Cambridge University.  When she returned she started to work with Langmuir again.  They worked with and studied tungsten filaments in electric lamps.  That knowledge led to other experiments and finally Blodgett discovered a way for making precise measurements of any transparent or semitransparent substance.  The other methods for measuring this were only accurate to a few thousandths of an inch but Blodgettís way was accurate to about one millionth of an inch.  Her new discovery of measuring transparent objects led to her invention of nonreflecting glass.
 Another big contribution Blodgett made was the smoke screens during WW II.  The smoke screens saved many lives by covering the troops who worked out in the open who would have been exposed to the toxic smoke.
 One reason Blodgett is so well respected is because she was the first woman to work in the General Electric research labs and she was the first woman to receive a Ph.D. in physics from Cambridge.  It was virtually impossible for woman to find professional-level jobs in corporations at that time so Blodgett was a lucky woman to get a job at General Electric.
 Blodgettís discoveries are still important today.  Her way of measuring transparent objects is still used today.  She helped pave the way for women physicists and scientists.
 Katharine Blodgett received many awards for her work, including the Garvan Medal in 1951.  She received honorary degrees from Elmira College in 1939, Brown University in 1942, Western College in1942, and Russell Sage College in 1944.  She was elected to be part of the American Physical Society and she was a member of the Optical Society of America

Bibliography
Altman, Linda Jacobs. Women Inventors. Facts on File, Inc. New York, NY. 1997.
.Bailey, Martha J. American Women in Science. Santa Barbara, California 1994.