Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Patricia Billings" in English language version.
History is full of examples of people who drew upon their talent and passion for science and art to drive new discoveries and advances...sculptor Patricia Billings invented "geobond" while trying to improve plaster
{{cite book}}: |last2= has generic name (help)Billings, 69, began developing the GeoBond formula several years ago in an effort to find something better than plaster with which to make castings of statues and other art objects.
The wall tested by Underwriters Laboratories was made by putting GeoBond over metal lath and tarpaper. Billings and Michalski call it the FireTherm system.
The daughter of a Clinton, Mo., farmer and his wife, she attended Kansas City Junior College and worked as a medical technologist studying fungal and bacterial diseases. She quit in 1947 when she married a plate-glass salesman, from whom she was later divorced. It was in 1956, while living in Texas, that she first studied art, at Amarillo College.
...she forwarded a sample to Heinz Poppendiek, an expert on thermal properties of matter who heads GeoScience Laboratories, an independent testing lab in San Diego. "I was surprised by its properties," he recalls. With some pointers from Dr. Poppendiek, Ms. Billings went to work on improving the material's heat-resistance and other properties.