Walter Houser Brattain

Walter Houser Brattain
Brattain in 1956
Born	(1902-02-10)February 10, 1902 Xiamen, Fujian, Qing China
Died	October 13, 1987(1987-10-13) (aged 85) Seattle, Washington, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Whitman College University of Oregon (MA) University of Minnesota (PhD)
Known for	Inventing the point-contact transistor
Spouses	Karen Gilmore ​ ​ (m. 1935; died 1957)​ Emma Jane Miller ​ (m. 1958)​
Children	1
Relatives	Robert Brattain (brother)
Awards	Stuart Ballantine Medal (1952) Nobel Prize in Physics (1956)
Scientific career
Fields	Physics
Institutions	Bell Labs
Doctoral advisor	John Torrence Tate Sr.

Walter Houser Brattain (/ˈbrætən/; February 10, 1902 – October 13, 1987) was an American physicist who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Bardeen and William Shockley for their invention of the point-contact transistor.^[1] Brattain devoted much of his life to research on surface states.