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A Copper Country native has been inducted into the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame.
Mary Locke Petermann was among those installed at a ceremony last evening.
Petermann was born in Laurium in 1908, and attended Calumet High School. She went on to study at Smith College, then earned a Ph. D. in physiological chemistry from the University of Wisconsin. There, she discovered the cell organelles that were first known as “Petermann’s Particles,” and today are called ribosomes.
The discovery led to breakthrough research in cancer treatments, and contributed to the recent development of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Petermann spent many years with the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, and was the first woman to be named a full professor at Cornell University. She died in 1975. Learn more about her here.
Other members of this year’s Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame class include Motown Records executive Esther Gordy Edwards, longtime University of Michigan softball coach Carol Sue Hutchins, journalist Mary Kramer, and police officer Danielle Camille Woods, who has worked to build relationships between law enforcement and the LGBTQ community.
