Mario J. Molina

Mario José Molina Henríquez (born March 19, 1943) is a Mexican chemist known mostly for being one of the largest precursors to the discovering of the Antarctic ozone hole.
Molina was awarded the 1995 Paul J. Crutzen and F. Sherwood Rowland. Mario Molina became the first and only Mexican to ever receive a Nobel Prize for science. Until recently he was an Institute Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Biography

Mr. Molina was born in Mexico City, son of Roberto Molina Pasquel, a lawyer and diplomat, and Leonor Henríquez de Molina.

Molina earned a bachelor's degree in Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Mario Molina married his second wife, Guadalupe Álvarez, in February 2006. Between 1974 and 2004 he variously held research and teaching posts at UC Irvine, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. On July 1, 2004 Molina joined the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCSD and the Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Molina is a member of the Pontifical Academy of Science, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Medicine. He serves on the boards of several environmental organizations, and also sits on a number of scientific committees including the U.S. President's Committee of Advisors in Science and Technology.

Mario Molina is regarded as one of the three most important Mexican chemists, together with first oral contraceptive pill.

In 2002 Molina received an Honoris Causa Degree from the Universidad de las Américas, Puebla, in Cholula,Puebla, Mexico. He has received more than 18 honorary degrees. Asteroid 9680 Molina is named in his honor. [1]

A short biography of Mario Molina is found in "Oxford Dictionary of Scientists" by Oxford University Press, 1999.

References

• MJ Molina and FS Rowland "Stratospheric Sink for Chlorofluoromethanes: Chlorine Atom-Catalysed Destruction of Ozone" Nature 249 (28 June 1974):810-2 doi:10.1038/249810a0
• An Environmental Fairy Tale: the Molina-Rowland Chemical Equations and the CFC problem. Aisling Irwin in It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science, edited by Graham Farmelo (gr@nt@ 2002)`