An exhibition celebrating the research contributions of Nobel laureate and UC Irvine chemistry professor F. Sherwood “Sherry” Rowland opens this evening in the Langson Library at UCI.
Ralph J. Cicerone, the National Academy of Sciences president who was UCI's dean of the School of Physical Sciences when Rowland shared the Nobel for Chemistry in 1995, and university Chancellor Michael Drake will share remarks at a 6 p.m. reception, which is followed by an exhibit tour.
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Like Rowland, Cicerone, who was also UCI's chancellor from 1998 to 2005, conducted
research in atmospheric chemistry, climate change and energy that would shape science and environmental policy at the highest
levels nationally and internationally.
“Discovery of a Lifetime: F. Sherwood Rowland and the Ozone Layer” traces 84-year-old Rowland's ground-breaking work that famously warned chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)
released into the atmosphere were depleting the Earth's vital ozone
layer. His research, along with postdoctoral colleague (and co-Nobel laureate) Mario Molina,
contributed to the passing of the 1987 Montreal Protocol to eliminate
CFCs from aerosols. The city that includes and surrounds UCI was the first in the nation to ban CFCs in 1990.
Rowland, who has a built an international reputation for informing other scientists, the
public and policymakers about threats posed by chemical pollutants to
the atmosphere, is also presented via the exhibit as a statesman. His relationship with the media, and his role
as a scientist and national advocate, are explored.
Curated by Mitchell Brown, research librarian
for Chemistry, Earth System Science & Russian Studies, the exhibit includes personal papers Rowland donated to UCI Libraries. These materials are now available for scholarly research in the Libraries' Department of Special
Collections and Archives.
Go to http://partners.lib.uci.edu/
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.