Like many scientists, "I'm driven by curiosity, primarily," said Greenblatt, a chemistry professor at Rutgers University. She has used that curiosity to design, create and study new materials whose properties make them good candidates for electronic devices, sensors and other uses.
Her research has taken two directions: solid-state materials, in which electrons move, and solid compounds in which ions, or electrically charged atoms, actually move.
Some of the metallic solid-state materials she investigates are semiconductors like those that have driven computers ever smaller and more powerful. But her ion-shuffling solids can yield broad applications as well, such as sensors.
"I've been to a pasta factory, and a chocolate factory, where the manufacturing tremendously depends on monitoring and controlling humidity," she said. "And right now there's not good material for a humidity sensor, believe it or not." Other companies have asked her about developing acidity sensors or batteries from her materials.
Greenblatt, a native of Hungary, arrived in New York as a teenager in the months following the bloody Soviet-quelled revolt of 1956. She received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Brooklyn College in 1962, then decided to go on to graduate school. Her choice was Brooklyn's Polytechnic Institute.
"By pure luck I ended up in a solid state lab," she said. "Even when I joined Rutgers, in 1974, there were very few solid-state chemists - let alone women [in the field]. When I got in the elevator I was the only woman around, professor or student."
Greenblatt considers mentoring the next generation of scientists among her most significant achievements.
Her award, which specifically recognizes outstanding achievement among women chemists, is sponsored by the Francis P. Garvan-John M. Olin Medal Endowment. Greenblatt is a member of the ACS inorganic division.