Wallace Hume Carothers (1896-1937) was a chemist and inventor of neoprene artificial rubber and nylon synthetic fiber. He worked as a chemist in E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company's Fundamental Research Program from 1928 until his death in 1937. Carothers was educated in the public schools of Des Moines, Iowa; he received his bachelor's degree at Tarkio College in Missouri and a doctorate in organic chemistry at the University of Illinois. In 1926, he was appointed instructor of organic chemistry at Harvard University. Two years later, Carothers was selected to head the research unit in organic chemistry at the DuPont Company.

At DuPont, Carothers' work focused on polymerization and the ways in which polymers structurally analogous to cellulose and silk could be prepared. In early 1930, the chemists in Carothers's laboratory produced neoprene (synthetic rubber) and the first laboratory-synthesized fiber. In 1934, still working on polymerization theory, Carothers produced the first polyamide fiber which was later to become known as nylon. During the next two years, Carothers suffered frequent bouts of depression. On April 29, 1937, three weeks after the basic nylon patent application was filed, he committed suicide.

John Raven Johnson (1900-1988) was a professor of chemistry at Cornell University from 1930 until his retirement in 1965. He also served as a consultant to E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company from 1937 until 1951, where he worked for the Organic Chemicals Department.

Johnson received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois, where he studied with professor Roger Adams. At Illinois, Johnson became a close friend of Wallace Carothers, who in 1928 joined the Chemical Department of the DuPont Company, where he headed the Organic Chemistry Section that developed nylon.