Whitney, Willis Rodney

Willis Rodney Whitney, (born Aug. 22, 1868, Jamestown, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 9, 1958, Schenectady, N.Y.), American chemist and founder of the General Electric Company’s research laboratory, where he directed pioneering work in electrical technology and was credited with setting the pattern for industrial scientific laboratory research in the United States.

Whitney studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Leipzig in 1896. Upon joining General Electric, Whitney founded (1900) its research laboratory at Schenectady, N.Y., and was its director (1900–28) and later vice president in charge of research (1928–41). There he found, in 1902, that metallized carbon filament for incandescent lamps produced 25 percent more light than had earlier filaments. He also directed work that led to the development of the modern electric light bulb and to improvements in vacuum tubes. He developed an electrochemical theory of corrosion that was widely used in the analysis of corrosion reactions.