Kathleen “Kay” (Gavin) Florin was a clerk in the chemistry division of the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory (“Met Lab”) during the Manhattan Project.
In September 1943, Florin joined the Met Lab as a clerk in the chemistry division. Previously, she had taken chemistry classes at a local community college in Chicago, Illinois.
Florin became the group supervisor of the Nonacademic Service Group, which was in charge of laboratory assistants, technicians and secretaries. Some of the women Florin supervised were Minnie Daniels, Aquilla Parsons, Elsie Mae Freeman, and Lillie May Porter.
She married Alan E. Florin, a chemist at the Met Lab, in August of 1944. She left the Met Lab in May 1946, but later moved to New Mexico and worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
For more information about Kay Florin and other women in the Manhattan Project, please see the following reference: