Pentti K. Siiteri ’48


Pentti K. Siiteri ’48 died on February 24 at his home in Sonoma, California, with his wife, Helen (sister of the late Everett Aspinwall ’48), and their four sons and one daughter all in attendance at his bedside. “Finn” received his A.B. in chemistry from Dartmouth in 1948, where he was a Navy V-12, and an M.S. in organic chemistry from the University of New Hampshire in 1950. He served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Medical Service Corp, surgical research unit, in Texas until 1953, whereupon he worked as a research biochemist at Lederle Laboratories of American Cyanamid Co. until 1959. He completed his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Columbia in 1962, specializing in reproductive hormones. He then spent 10 years doing research in his specialty in the obstetrics and gynecology departments at the Southwestern Medical School of the University of Texas in Dallas as an assistant, associate, and full professor. He was then invited to join the obstetrics-gynecology department at the University of California Medical School, where he continued his research until retiring in 2002. Finn published 175 scientific papers in major biochemical and medical journals and received numerous awards and honors including an honorary M.D., an award from the president of the U.S. Society for Gynecologic Investigation and an honorary membership in the White Knights of Finland from the president of Finland.