Katharine Way
| Katharine Way | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 20, 1902 Sewickley, Pennsylvania |
| Died | December 9, 1995 (aged 93) Chapel Hill, North Carolina |
| Citizenship | United States of America |
| Fields | Physics |
| Institutions |
University of Tennessee Manhattan Project National Bureau of Standards Oak Ridge National Laboratory Duke University |
| Alma mater |
Columbia University University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| Thesis | Photoelectric Cross Section of the Deuteron [1] (1938) |
| Doctoral advisor | John Wheeler |
| Known for | Nuclear Data Project |
Katharine "Kay" Way (February 20, 1902 – December 9, 1995) was an American physicist best known for her work on the Nuclear Data Project. During World War II, she worked for the Manhattan Project at the Metallurgical Laboratory in Chicago. She became an adjunct professor at Duke University in 1968.
Katharine Way was born in Sewickley, Pennsylvania, the second child of William Addisson Way, a lawyer, and his wife Louise Jones. She had an older brother and a younger sister. Originally named Catherine, she later changed the spelling to Katharine. Friends and colleagues generally knew her as Kay. Her mother died when she was twelve years old, and her father married an ear and throat specialist, who provided Kay with a role model of a career woman.
Way was educated at Miss Hartridge's boarding school in Plainfield, New Jersey, and Rosemary Hall in Greenwich, Connecticut. In 1920 she entered Vassar College, but was forced to drop out after two years after becoming ill with suspected tuberculosis. After convalescing in Saranac Lake, New York, she attended Barnard College for a couple of semesters in 1924 and 1925.
From 1929 to 1934 she studied at Columbia University, where Edward Kasner stoked an interest in mathematics, and co-authored Way's first published academic paper. She graduated with her BS in 1932. She next went to the University of North Carolina, where John Wheeler stimulated an interest in nuclear physics, and she became his first PhD student. Because jobs were hard to come by during the Great Depression, she stayed on as a graduate student after completing the requirements of her PhD.
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