Portrait of a scientific glassblower
Channel: UC Berkeley
Date: 2019-06-12

For the past 16 years, Jim Breen, the highly-skilled artisan, has created glass apparatuses and other vessels for Berkeley researchers — not just those in chemistry, but in engineering, earth and planetary science, physics and other fields.

Breen, who’s blown glass for about 40 years, is one of a dwindling number of scientific glassblowers in the United States. Fifty years ago, the American Scientific Glassblowers Society had roughly 1,000 members; for the past 25 years, the number’s circled 500. But Breen says only about 50 work at colleges or universities.

To read the full story, visit: https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/06/10/glassblower/

Video by Stephen McNally
Music: "Eureka" by Huma Huma, "The Sun is Scheduled to Come Out Tomorrow" by Chris Zabriskie, and "Flickering" by Yven

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