She was the first to propose that the structure of globular proteins was maintained by hydrogen bonds, an idea championed later by Linus Pauling and others.

There she was able to continued her basic research (especially how protein fibres behaved in aqueous systems), but also quickly came to understand the processes involved in the leather manufacturing industry, and was able to develop and introduce a number of control mechanisms which have since become normal tannery practice.

Despite many set-backs over that time (such as the wartime bombing of their new laboratory facilities) support for the BLMRA's work increased under her leadership, and it came to be seen as an essential part of the leather manufacturing industry.

She received the Fraser Muir Moffat medal, awarded by the Tanners' Council of America in 1939 for her contributions to leather chemistry.

A keen mountaineer in later life, in 1928 Dorothy Jordan Lloyd was noted for making the first ascent and descent in one day of the Eiger's Mittellegi Ridge.