Mary Locke Petermann, biochemist and feminist, was born on February 26, 1908, in Laurium, Michigan. She was graduated from Smith College in 1929 with high honors in Chemistry and membership in Phi Beta Kappa. In 1939, she received her Ph.D. in Physiological Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin. She remained at Wisconsin conducting researchin the Department of Physical Chemistry until her 1945 appointment as chemist at Memorial Hospital, New York. In 1946, Dr. Petermann became an associate of Sloan-Kettering Institute (SKI). She was the first woman to be elected a member of SKI in 1963.

She taught biochemistry in the Sloan-Kettering Division, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Cornell University; in 1951 she held the rank of associate professor; by 1966, full professor. In 1973, she became a member emeritus of SKI and retired to continue writing. She died about two years later on December 13, 1975.

Dr. Petermann's chief research interests lay in the physical and chemical properties of plasma proteins and ribosomes. She was the first to isolate and describe “Petermann's particles” which were later renamed ribosomes. For her work, she received several awards: in 1963, the Sloan Award; in 1966, the Garvan Medal of the American Chemical Society, an honorary Sc.D. degree from Smith College, and the Distinguished Service Award of the American Academy of Achievement. One of her most famous works was The Physical and Chemical Properties of Ribosomes published in 1964.

Dr. Petermann worked actively for women's rights. At SKI and the Association of Women in Science, she strove for "equal status and pay for equal work."