The founding of ACS in 1876 predates Herman Staudinger’s article on “Über Polymerization” in 1920, the birth of today’s field of polymer science and engineering. The long history of ACS Publications catalogs the evolution of this field over the past 100+ years. This review celebrates historic and more recent publications in ACS journals selected by our Associate Editors and Early Career Advisory Board members of ACS Applied Polymer Materials as influential discoveries. These 10 highlights cover the topics of vitrimers, polyelectrolyte complexes, thermosets, porous membranes, ceramic nanofibers facilitated by polymeric materials, ring-opening polymerization, foldamers, flame-retardant materials, and network gels, showing how these discoveries impacted our community’s personal careers and research communities.
Jodie L. Lutkenhaus (2026) studied this question.