Happy Native American Heritage Month! To celebrate, we wanted to highlight a couple of influential inventors from the over 570 tribes here in the United States.
Thomas David Petite
Thomas David Petite is an inventor whose native affiliation is with the Fond du Lac Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa Nation. Petite has contributed greatly to the development of the “smart grid.” With over 50 U.S. patents, Petite founded the Native American Inventors Association and works to support Native American Inventors throughout the country. He is also a newly elected member of the Professional Awards Selection Committee of the American Indian and Science Engineering Society.
Krystal Tsosie
Krystal Tsosie is a Navajo geneticist and bioethics specialist at Vanderbilt University. She serves as Co-Principal Investigator on a study that investigates genetic determinants of pre-eclampsia, specifically in pregnant women, with the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa.
Native Americans developed several key innovations long before Columbus reached the Americas – many of which were not patented. Check out the following article to uncover ten inventions originating from Native American tribes that are commonly used today.
