Patsy O. Sherman

Patsy O. Sherman was born in Minnesota and raised by parents who encouraged her to be curious and to pursue her dreams. After earning a chemistry degree, she spent all of her career at 3M. She and collaborator Samuel Smith created a series of chemicals that are oil and water resistant in air but, when added to textiles, able to be laundered repeatedly. These chemicals, including Scotchgard, are used as coatings for fabrics, metals, and plastics and even added to paints to make surfaces more cleanable. The invented materials are copolymers with one polymer type being hydrophobic and the other hydrophilic. The chemicals were initially discovered by accident, when a flask in the lab poured onto Sherman’s shoes and she later realized that she could not remove the stain and that it repelled soil. The chapter mentions other accidental discoveries.