[1] In 2015, the NIST Katharine Blodgett Gebbie Laboratory Building in Boulder, Colorado was named in her honor.

She is the namesake of her aunt, Katharine Burr Blodgett (1898-1979), who was the first woman to earn a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Cambridge, and subsequently joined the research laboratories of the General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York.

In an autobiographical memoir,[3] Gebbie recalled that on family visits her Aunt Katharine: always arrived with suitcases full of 'apparatus', with which she showed us such wonders as how to make colors by dipping glass rods into thin films of oil floating on water.

The early 1960s were a time of significant public investment in research in both atomic physics and astrophysics, due to their combined importance for understanding the upper atmosphere, plasma diagnostics, guided missile systems, and satellite and space flight.

In 1968, Gebbie was appointed to the position of Physicist at NBS, which had its own group of astrophysicists who worked in collaboration with University of Colorado colleagues at the JILA site.

Other senior NBS staff at JILA who worked on astrophysics and astronomy in that era included Jeffrey L. Linsky and David G. Hummer.

.I didn't see that my career was going to thrive and I took an opportunity to come [to NBS headquarters in Gaithersburg, Maryland]At the time, the technical activities of NBS were pursued in three laboratory-level[7] organizations: National Measurement Laboratory, National Engineering Laboratory, and Institute for Computer Sciences and Technology.

[8] The central office of each of these units had a program and planning team that dealt with a variety of matters associated with operating a diverse national standards laboratory.

At the end of this period she was offered a line management position, and was appointed Chief of the Quantum Physics Division in 1985.

This transition was preceded and followed by major internal changes in NBS and NIST, in which Gebbie played key roles.

Gebbie was inducted into the Senior Executive Service in 1987 and was appointed Acting Director of the Center for Basic Standards (CBS) the following year.

One issue that she encountered immediately as PL Director was the future of a free-electron laser project that had just lost its funding from the U.S. Department of Defense.

However, Gebbie defended her actions effectively, stating that she believed in the full funding of top-priority programs, and would avoid responding to financial exigencies by making "across-the board" reductions.

After some significant early restructuring, PL maintained the same general form and executive leadership for 20 years, until a global reorganization of NIST in 2011.

[2] Gebbie died on August 17, 2016, after a number of health issues following an accident in early 2015 while attending the AAAS Annual Meeting in San Jose, CA.