Molina, Mario (1943–)
Molina, Mario (1943–)
Mario Molina is a Mexican scientist who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1995. Born March 19, 1943, the son of a prominent lawyer who later became a diplomat, Molina obtained his bachelor's degree from the National University of Mexico in 1965 and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1972. He took a position at the University of California, Irvine, where he and his colleague, F. Sherwood Rowland, published research demonstrating that chlorofluorocarbons, which were widely used in spray cans and air conditioners, were harmful to the ozone layer, eventually leading to efforts to ban their use. From 1982 to 1989 he worked for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and then taught at MIT beginning in 1989. In 2005 he took a teaching position at the University of California at San Diego and also established a strategic studies center in energy and the environment in Mexico City. He is the only Mexican to have won a Nobel Prize in the sciences.
See alsoEnvironment and Climate; Science.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Molina, Mario. Nobel Lecture, December 8, 1995. Available from http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1995/molina-lecture.html.
Roderic Ai Camp