F. SHERWOOD ROWLAND
Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland received his B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan University (1948), M.S., University of Chicago (1951), Ph.D., University of Chicago (1952), D. Sc., University of Chicago (1989), D.Sc., Duke University (1989), L.L.D, Ohio Wesleyan University (1989), D.Sc., Whittier College,(1989), D.Sc., Princeton University (1990), L.L.D, Simon Fraser University, Canada (1991), D.Sc., Haverford College, Pennsylvania (1992), D. Sc., Clark University (1996), D.Sc., East Anglia University, U.K. (1996).Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland, Donald Bren Research Professor of Chemistry, came to the University of California, Irvine in 1964 as the first chair of the Department of Chemistry. He previously held faculty positions at Princeton University and the University of Kansas. He is currently the elected Foreign Secretary of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Rowland is a specialist in atmospheric chemistry and radiochemistry, and was, with colleague Mario Molina, the first scientist to warn that chlorofluorocarbons released into the atmosphere were depleting the earth's critical ozone layer. Research on CFCs and stratospheric ozone eventually led in the 1970s to legislation in the United States, Canada and Scandinavia regulating the manufacture and use of chlorofluorocarbons, and in 1987 to the Montreal Protocol of the United Nations Environment Program, the first international agreement for controlling and ameliorating environmental damage to the global atmosphere. The terms of the Montreal Protocol were strengthened in 1992 to attain a complete phaseout of further CFC production by the year 1996.
Rowland has also been investigating the impact of methane gas on the atmosphere. These studies have shown that the atmospheric concentrations increased steadily at about 1% per year from 1978 to 1988, but have reached a near equilibrium in the 1990's. The methane concentration has more than doubled in the past two centuries. Methane absorbs terrestrial infrared radiation, and increases in its concentration contribute to the "greenhouse effect," the gradual warming of the earth's surface. The Rowland research group is now investigating the hydrocarbon and halocarbon composition of the atmosphere both from aircraft in remote locations and on the surface in heavily polluted cities. More than 50 scientists have received Ph.D. degrees under his direction.
Rowland is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1983, he and Molina received both the Tyler World Prize in Ecology and Energy and the Award for Creative Advances in Environmental Science and Technology of the American Chemical Society. In 1987, Rowland received the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievements in Health, and in 1988, he was made a member of the Global 500, the Honour Role of the United Nations and in 1994 he received the Albert Einstein Prize of the World Cultural Council. During 1991-1993, he served successive one-year terms as President-Elect, President, and Chairman of the Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Rowland was awarded the American Chemical Society 1993 Peter Debye Medal in Physical Chemistry, and the 1994 Roger Revelle Medal for the American Geophysical Union. In 1995, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen. Rowland has won the University of California Irvine Medal. He has more than 330 scientific publications in the arenas of atmospheric chemistry, radiochemistry and chemical kinetics.