From: CHAS membership <membership**At_Symbol_Here**DCHAS.ORG>
Subject: [DCHAS-L] C&EN article: 25 years after Karen Wetterhahn died of dimethylmercury poisoning, her influence persists
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2022 07:44:27 -0400
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU>
Message-ID: 3FEC3A86-B345-40DF-8BBB-CB1E9C40B730**At_Symbol_Here**dchas.org


25 years after Karen Wetterhahn died of dimethylmercury poisoning, her influence persists
https://cen.acs.org/safety/lab-safety/25-years-Karen-Wetterhahn-died-dimethylmercury-poisoning/100/i21

In Brief:
Karen Wetterhahn was a rising star in 1996. She was making key advances in understanding biochemical reactions of the heavy metal chromium and how those can cause disease. She had launched a major interdisciplinary research program to understand the effects of heavy-metal pollutants in northern New England. She was serving in top administrative positions at Dartmouth College. And a program for women in science that she helped found was being emulated around the country. Then a shocking lab accident halted her trajectory: on June 8, 1997, Wetterhahn died from dimethylmercury poisoning. Her legacies remain, however. Twenty-five years later, Wetterhahn‰??s colleagues and those who never knew her still feel her influences on laboratory safety, the scientific method, and women in science.

with a companion piece at

Twenty-Five Years Ago‰??Remembering the Life and Loss of Professor Karen E. Wetterhahn
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chas.2c00034

Karen Elizabeth Wetterhahn (born 1948) died on June 8, 1997, after a single accidental occupational exposure to the alkyl mercury compound dimethylmercury nearly a year earlier. A bioinorganic chemist, in 1976, Karen had become Dartmouth College‰??s first female chemistry professor, launching a successful career as a scientist, teacher, and administrator and a pioneer in educating and mentoring women in the sciences. She was a mother, wife, and beloved member of the Upper Valley community of New Hampshire and Vermont. Twenty-five years after her death, with a continued sense of loss, we seek to remind those who remember this event and share her story‰??s importance with a new generation of scientists.

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