If it’s glass, Ryan Tate can make it

Repairing a $3,000 glass apparatus, cutting a rare crystal for use in quantum technology, working quartz that glows brighter than the sun: It's all in a day's work for Pitt's scientific glassblower Ryan Tate.

Tate leads Pitt's glass shop, part of the Shared Research Support Services office in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, where he creates and repairs flasks, piping and more complicated systems used to conduct research across the University. He's taking part in a time-honored tradition: Science and glass have long been inseparable.

"Glass has been involved in seven out of the 10 most important inventions for humanity," he said. "Everything from antibiotics to all the laser research that's going on right now, it all has to do with glass."

And yet, Tate is somewhat of a rarity these days. Tate attended a specialized program at Salem Community College in New Jersey and worked in industry before coming to Pitt. He's the only scientific glassblower in Western Pennsylvania, putting him in demand not just at Pitt but for researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and Duquesne University, too. Combined, they keep him busy, sometimes with dozens of projects a month.