Chase N. Peterson

Chase Nebeker Peterson was an educator and university administrator and physician.

Peterson was born on December 27, 1929, and grew up in Logan, Utah. His father, E. G. Peterson, was president of Utah State University at the time.

in the ninth grade his principal at Logan Junior High School asked if he would like to take a scholarship exam for a New England boarding school. A month later his parents received a telegram announcing his scholarship to Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts. He arrived at Middlesex that September, the first Utahn and first Latter-day Saint to ever attend.[1]

Peterson earned bachelor’s and Doctor of Medicine degrees from Harvard University, specializing in endocrinology.

He did an internship at Yale, then served as a physician in the Army for two years in Frankfurt, Germany. He returned to Yale for his residency program, then moved to Utah in 1961 where he accepted a position as an endocrinologist at the Salt Lake Clinic. He was the first doctor in Utah trained to use the artificial kidney machine.

He practiced medicine for a time in Utah. In 1967, he returned to Harvard to become dean of admissions. In 1978, he became vice president of health sciences at the University of Utah. Dr. Peterson's tenure there included the implantation of the first artificial heart into Barney Clark. In 1983, he was named president of the university.

After his retirement from the university in 1991, he studied medicine for one year in order to pass his board exams and return to family practice after over twenty years away from the profession. He became a member of the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Utah, served on the admissions committee of the U. Medical School. He continued teaching a course at the medical school until his death from pneumonia on September 14, 2014.

In 2006, he received the Harvard Alumni Association medal. He and his wife, Grethe, had three children.