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n2doc

(47,953 posts)
Sat Jun 21, 2014, 05:09 AM Jun 2014

Stephanie Kwolek, Chemist Who Created Kevlar, Dies At 90

by CAMILA DOMONOSKE

Stephanie Kwolek, a DuPont chemist who invented the synthetic fibers used in Kevlar body armor, has died at the age of 90, her colleagues said Friday.

A fellow chemist told The Associated Press that Kwolek died Wednesday at a Wilmington, Del., hospital following a brief illness. Kwolek was a groundbreaking scientist and mentor to other women in the field. The astonishingly strong fibers she invented are used around the world in bulletproof body armor.

She earned a degree in chemistry from a women's college at what is now Carnegie Mellon University. After she graduated in 1946, she thought about going to medical school, according to the American Chemical Society, but instead applied for a job as a chemist with the DuPont company.

"She found an opportunity at DuPont because many men were in the military at the time," reports the Wilmington News Journal. Kwolek continued to flourish there long after World War II ended, doing extensive work on polymers.



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http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/06/20/323951708/stephanie-kwolek-chemist-who-created-kevlar-dies-at-90

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