Caroline Emilie "Lili" Bleeker (17 January 1897 – 8 November 1985) was a Dutch entrepreneur and physicist from Middelburg known for her designs and the manufacturing of optical instruments. In the era she grew up, it was the norm for women to become housewives whose chief roles were to perform domestic duties, but Bleeker did not want to conform to these standards. She wanted to pursue an education, and never married her life-long partner, Gerard Willemse, which was quite anomalous at the time. She would later emerge as one of the first women in the Netherlands to become a doctor in physics and mathematics. After earning her PhD, she founded a physics consultancy firm, which served as an influence for the formation of TNO, and extended her firm by establishing a small factory where scienti