She left her job as an assistant professor in Newcomb College in 1953 to work at the USDA Southern Regional Research Center of the US Department of Agriculture in New Orleans, where she spent most of her career. At the USDA she worked in the Intravenous Fat Program of the OilSeed Laboratory, and in 1955 she was promoted to project leader. In 1958 she was promoted to acting head of the Colloid Cotton Chemical Laboratory, and in 1959 she became the research leader of the Physical Chemistry Research Group of the Cotton Reaction Laboratory. Benerito completed a postdoctoral fellowship in 1972 in biophysics at Tulane University. Still at Tulane, she was an adjunct professor from 1960 to 1981. During that time, she also worked as a lecturer at the University of New Orleans. In later years, while she was researching cotton fibers, Benerito taught classes part-time at Tulane University and at the University of New Orleans. She retired from the USDA in 1986 but continued to teach part-time at Tulane and the University of New Orleans. Contribution Invention of wrinkle-free cotton Benerito is most famous for her work relating to the use of mono-basic acid chlorides in the production of cotton, with which she had 55 patents. She invented these wash-and-wear cotton fabrics, which allow for more wrinkle-free and durable clothing, while working at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) laboratories in New Orleans in the 1950s. Before this innovation, a family needed considerable time to iron clothes. Benerito found a way to chemically treat the surface of cotton that led not only to wrinkle-resistant fabric but also to stain- and flame-resistant fabrics. The invention was said to have "saved the cotton industry." While she is publicly credited for the invention of wrinkle-free fiber, she did not believe she singlehandedly invented it. She clarified her role in a 2004 USDA interview by stating, "I don't like it to be said that I invented wash-wear because there were any number of people worked on it and the various processes by which you give cotton those properties. No one person discovered it or is responsible for it, but I contributed to a new process of doing it." The secret of the invention is the use of a process known as crosslinking. Cotton is composed of a natural polymeric material called cellulose. Like nylon and synthetic polyesters, cellulose is a polymer; that is,