Scientists (Still) Need Glassblowers

You break it, he fixes it. Scientific glassblower Neal Korfhage discusses the past, present and future of his unusual occupation.

By Marisa Sloan
Aug 25, 2021 4:00 PMAug 25, 2021 4:10 PM
Scientific glassblower
Scientific glassblower Neal Korfhage demonstrates his skills in the glass shop at the University of Wisonsin-Milwaukee. (Credit: Marisa Sloan/Discover)

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Although much of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s chemistry building remains mostly undisturbed over the summer, the same cannot be said of the glass shop hidden deep within its basement. One afternoon, a graduate student drops off a cardboard box of seemingly infinite broken glassware: round-bottomed flasks and Schlenk flasks, condensers and chromatography columns. A crack here, a missing component there — occasionally two pieces that were accidentally glued together via the intense heat used in a chemical reaction.

As each passes under his eye on its way to the workbench, Neal Korfhage, the university’s lone scientific glassblower, nods and remarks, “I can do that.”

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