Owen Wright Webster (March 25, 1929 – April 13, 2018) was a distinguished member of the organic and polymer chemistry communities.

He received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Pennsylvania State University in 1955 under the direction of L. H. Sommer, known for his silicon mechanistic work.

After graduation, Webster joined the Central Research Department of E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company at the Experimental Station, where he spent his entire industrial career.

His seminal discoveries in this area ranged from tetracyanoethylene oxide,[2] which adds to olefins through its carbon-carbon bond; hexacyanobutadiene,[3] with an oxidation potential near that of bromine; pentacyanocyclopentadiene,[4] an acid as strong as perchloric acid; diiminosuccinonitrile,[5] a remarkable adduct of cyanogen and hydrogen cyanide; and diazodicyanoimidazole,[6] which cleaves to a carbene that forms a bromo ylide with bromobenzene.

Shortly before retirement he capped his efforts in the materials science area with the synthesis of high surface-area hypercrosslinked polymers by coupling rigid-rod A2 monomers with B3 crosslinkers.