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, Wetterhahnâ??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 Agoâ??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 Collegeâ??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 storyâ??s importance with a new generation of scientists.

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