ScienceMakers Toolkit Manual - The History Makers

ScienceMakers
Spotlight: Roderic Pettigrew
Full Name: Roderic Pettigrew
Born: March 26, 1951
Place: Waynesboro, GA
Parents: Edwina L. Pettigrew
Cleveland William Pettigrew
Education: Monroe High School – Albany, GA
Morehouse College – Atlanta, GA (B.S. Physics, 1972)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute – Troy, NY
(M.S. Nuclear Science, 1974)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology – Cambridge, MA
(Ph.D. Applied Radiation Physics, 1977)
University of Miami Medical School – Coral Gables, FL (M.D., 1979)
Type of Science: Radiology
Achievements: Clinical work and research on magnetic resonance imaging techniques
Pioneering research involving four-dimensional imaging of the heart
Biography
Radiologist Dr. Roderic Pettigrew was born on March 26, 1951 in Waynesboro, Georgia
to Cleveland William Pettigrew and Edwina L. Pettigrew, who encouraged his early childhood
curiosity. Pettigrew attended Morehouse College in Atlanta after his junior year of high school on
a full scholarship from Charles Merrill. Pettigrew received his B.S. degree cum laude in physics
from Morehouse in 1972, and went on to attend graduate school at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute,
where earned his M.S. degree in nuclear science. Pettigrew then attended the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, where he earned his Ph.D. in applied radiation physics in 1977.
Pettigrew’s postgraduate research led him to also pursue an accelerated medical degree at the
University of Miami Medical School, and he obtained his M.D. degree in 1979. Pettigrew returned
to Atlanta to complete his residency in internal medicine at Emory University. He then went to the
University of California at San Diego for another internship in nuclear medicine, which he completed
in 1983. After many years as a medical student and intern, Pettigrew began to perform his
own clinical work and research on imaging techniques associated with magnetic resonance imaging
(MRI) in 1985 with Picker International, the fi rst company to patent the MRI.
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