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Stephanie Kwolek
Stephanie Louise Kwolek (/ˈkwoʊlɛk/; July 31, 1923 – June 18, 2014) was an American chemist best known for inventing Kevlar (poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide). Her career at the DuPont company spanned more than 40 years.
For her discovery, Kwolek was awarded the DuPont company's Lavoisier Medal for outstanding technical achievement. As of August 2019, she was the only female employee to have received that honor. In 1995 she became the fourth woman to be added to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Kwolek won numerous awards for her work in polymer chemistry, including the National Medal of Technology, the IRI Achievement Award and the Perkin Medal.
Kwolek was one of two children born to Polish immigrant parents in the Pittsburgh suburb of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, in 1923. The grade school she attended was small enough to require her classroom be shared by two different grades, which she found to be an advantage; as Kwolek's love of science grew, she easily outpaced even the older children across the room. Her father, John Kwolek, died when she was ten years old. He was a naturalist by avocation, and Kwolek spent hours with him, as a child, exploring the natural world. They would spend afternoons together exploring the woods nearby, collecting plants and observing animals that they would later name and characterize in a scrapbook. She attributed her interest in science to him and an interest in fashion design to her mother Nellie (née Zajdel), who worked as a seamstress. Her mother told her that she was too much of a perfectionist to work a career in fashion, so Stephanie decided to become a physician.
In 1946, Stephanie earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Margaret Morrison Carnegie College of Carnegie Mellon University. She had planned to become a physician and hoped she could earn enough money from a temporary job in a chemistry-related field to attend medical school.
Kwolek was offered a position at DuPont's Buffalo, New York, facility in 1946 by William Hale Charch, a future mentor. During her interview with DuPont, Dr. Charch had said the company would reach out to her in about two weeks to tell her whether she had secured the job. Kwolek asked if they could possibly respond sooner because she had to notify another company if she would accept their offer. Charch then called in his receptionist to dictate Kwolek's offer letter in front of her.
As a chemical company, DuPont was trying to find a petroleum-based polymer fiber that would be lighter and harder-wearing than steel in radial tires. The firm had vacancies, given that many men had been overseas fighting in World War II. DuPont had introduced nylon shortly before the war, and that business boomed and blossomed into several textile applications.
At the same time, the protracted second World War emphasized the need for a lightweight, wearable armor to protect personnel and equipment. As the war raged overseas, soldiers engaged in battle had to do without body armor because there was no material strong enough to stop a rifle bullet but light enough to wear in battle. Steel was the only armor material available, and its weight limited its use to armored vehicles. Even then, steel could be pierced by specialized armor-piercing ammunition.
Although Kwolek intended to work for DuPont temporarily, in order to raise money for further study, the polymer research she worked on was so interesting and challenging that she decided to drop her plans for medical school and make chemistry a lifetime career. Her research group moved to Wilmington, Delaware, in 1950. In 1959, she won a publication award from the American Chemical Society (ACS), the first of many awards. The paper, "The Nylon Rope Trick", demonstrated a way of producing nylon in a beaker at room temperature. It is still a common classroom experiment, and the process was extended to high molecular weight polyamides. In 1985, Kwolek and coworkers patented a method for preparing PBO and PBT polymers. Because DuPont was at the cutting edge of polymer technology and innovation, Kwolek never outgrew the position and spent her whole career doing research at Dupont. Over her 40-year career, Kwolek would file 28 patents. In addition to Kevlar, she contributed to products such as Spandex (Lycra), Nomex, and Kapton. She continued as a consultant to Dupont after her retirement in 1986, and became the first woman to earn the company’s Lavoisier medal for research in 1995.
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Stephanie Kwolek
Stephanie Louise Kwolek (/ˈkwoʊlɛk/; July 31, 1923 – June 18, 2014) was an American chemist best known for inventing Kevlar (poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide). Her career at the DuPont company spanned more than 40 years.
For her discovery, Kwolek was awarded the DuPont company's Lavoisier Medal for outstanding technical achievement. As of August 2019, she was the only female employee to have received that honor. In 1995 she became the fourth woman to be added to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Kwolek won numerous awards for her work in polymer chemistry, including the National Medal of Technology, the IRI Achievement Award and the Perkin Medal.
Kwolek was one of two children born to Polish immigrant parents in the Pittsburgh suburb of New Kensington, Pennsylvania, in 1923. The grade school she attended was small enough to require her classroom be shared by two different grades, which she found to be an advantage; as Kwolek's love of science grew, she easily outpaced even the older children across the room. Her father, John Kwolek, died when she was ten years old. He was a naturalist by avocation, and Kwolek spent hours with him, as a child, exploring the natural world. They would spend afternoons together exploring the woods nearby, collecting plants and observing animals that they would later name and characterize in a scrapbook. She attributed her interest in science to him and an interest in fashion design to her mother Nellie (née Zajdel), who worked as a seamstress. Her mother told her that she was too much of a perfectionist to work a career in fashion, so Stephanie decided to become a physician.
In 1946, Stephanie earned a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Margaret Morrison Carnegie College of Carnegie Mellon University. She had planned to become a physician and hoped she could earn enough money from a temporary job in a chemistry-related field to attend medical school.
Kwolek was offered a position at DuPont's Buffalo, New York, facility in 1946 by William Hale Charch, a future mentor. During her interview with DuPont, Dr. Charch had said the company would reach out to her in about two weeks to tell her whether she had secured the job. Kwolek asked if they could possibly respond sooner because she had to notify another company if she would accept their offer. Charch then called in his receptionist to dictate Kwolek's offer letter in front of her.
As a chemical company, DuPont was trying to find a petroleum-based polymer fiber that would be lighter and harder-wearing than steel in radial tires. The firm had vacancies, given that many men had been overseas fighting in World War II. DuPont had introduced nylon shortly before the war, and that business boomed and blossomed into several textile applications.
At the same time, the protracted second World War emphasized the need for a lightweight, wearable armor to protect personnel and equipment. As the war raged overseas, soldiers engaged in battle had to do without body armor because there was no material strong enough to stop a rifle bullet but light enough to wear in battle. Steel was the only armor material available, and its weight limited its use to armored vehicles. Even then, steel could be pierced by specialized armor-piercing ammunition.
Although Kwolek intended to work for DuPont temporarily, in order to raise money for further study, the polymer research she worked on was so interesting and challenging that she decided to drop her plans for medical school and make chemistry a lifetime career. Her research group moved to Wilmington, Delaware, in 1950. In 1959, she won a publication award from the American Chemical Society (ACS), the first of many awards. The paper, "The Nylon Rope Trick", demonstrated a way of producing nylon in a beaker at room temperature. It is still a common classroom experiment, and the process was extended to high molecular weight polyamides. In 1985, Kwolek and coworkers patented a method for preparing PBO and PBT polymers. Because DuPont was at the cutting edge of polymer technology and innovation, Kwolek never outgrew the position and spent her whole career doing research at Dupont. Over her 40-year career, Kwolek would file 28 patents. In addition to Kevlar, she contributed to products such as Spandex (Lycra), Nomex, and Kapton. She continued as a consultant to Dupont after her retirement in 1986, and became the first woman to earn the company’s Lavoisier medal for research in 1995.
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