F. Sherwood Rowland, Ph.D., is the Donald Bren Research Professor of Chemistry and Earth System Science at the University of California at Irvine. Rowland won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen, "for their work on atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone."

Rowland came to UC-Irvine in 1964 as the first chair of the Department of Chemistry. He specializes in atmospheric chemistry and radiochemistry and has authored or co-authored more than 400 scientific publications.

Rowland earned his doctoral degree from the University of Chicago under the direction of Professor Willard Libby, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1960. Rowland and Mario Molina were the first to warn that chlorofluorocarbons released into the atmosphere were depleting Earth's stratospheric ozone layer. Research on CFCs and stratospheric ozone eventually led to legislation regulating the manufacture and use of chlorofluorocarbons and to the Montreal Protocol of the United Nations Environment Program, in effect, banning CFC production worldwide.

Rowland has been investigating the impact of methane gas on the atmosphere since 1978, including quarterly measurements of the global methane burden by atmospheric sampling throughout the Pacific.

His research group now is investigating the hydrocarbon and halocarbon composition of the atmosphere in remote locations and polluted cities around the world. More than 40 scientists have received Ph.D. degrees under his direction, and approximately 100 post-doctoral associates have worked in his laboratory. Rowland is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Institute of Medicine. He is the 1994 winner of the American Geophysical Union’s Roger Revelle Medal and a past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Rowland earned a B.A. degree from Ohio Wesleyan University and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago.