INVENTORS HALL OF FAME
Kwolek
Patent Number 3,819,587; re. 30,352 Optically Anisotropic Aromatic Polyamide Dopes and Oriented Fibers Therefrom Kevlar
Born in New Kensington Pennsylvania, Stephanie Kwolek received her B.S. in chemistry from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1946. That same year she went to work as a chemist at the Buffalo, New York, site of E.I. Du Pont de Nemours & Company.
"I really wanted to study medicine," Kwolek recalled, "but I didn't have enough money to enter medical school. I joined Du Pont as a temporary measure, but the work turned out to be so interesting that I stayed on."
The most famous product of her discovery was Kevlar, a polymer fiber five times stronger than the same weight of steel. The material of choice for bullet-resistant vests and many other applications generates hundreds of millions of dollars in sales worldwide each year.
Thousands of police can attest to the value of Stephanie Kwoleks' breakthrough research in para-aramid fibers. The fruits of her inventiveness can be found in mooring ropes, fiber-optic cables, aircraft parts, canoes, and--most important to police--in lightweight bullet-resistant vests.
Kwolek moved to the Pioneering Research Laboratory at Du Pont's Experimental Station in Wilmington, Delaware in 1950. She retired in 1986 as a research associate but continues to consult for Du Pont and serves on the committees of the National Research Council and the National Academy of Sciences.
Her name appears on 17 patents issued between 1961 and 1986.
The above information was supplied by the National Inventors Hall of Fame Foundation, Inc., Room 1D01-Crystal Plaza 3, 2021 Jefferson Davis Highway, Arlington, Virginia 22202. Videotapes and printed materials are currently available. For more information, visit the Foundation's web site at http://www.invent.org
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