Mario J. Molina, Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement

<!doctype html> <html lang="en-US" prefix="og: http://ogp.me/ns#"> <head><script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=HxkREWBo" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script> <script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden"};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> __wm.init("https://web.archive.org/web"); __wm.wombat("http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/","20181025071351","https://web.archive.org/","web","/_static/", "1540451631"); </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=S1zqJCYt" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />  <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="57x57" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="60x60" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="120x120" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="76x76" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="152x152" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-196x196.png" sizes="196x196"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-128.png" sizes="128x128"/> <meta name="application-name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#000000"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-144x144.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-70x70.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-150x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x310.png"/> <link href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351cs_/https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,600,400italic,600italic,700,700italic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <title>Mario J. Molina, Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement</title>  <meta name="description" content="Mario Molina was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California in 1974 when he published a paper in the journal Nature, outlining the threat to the environment posed by chemicals used in everyday spray cans, refrigerators and air conditioners. Chlorofluorocarbons -- CFCs -- were destroying the earth's ozone layer, the atmospheric shield that protects living organisms from the ultraviolet radiation of the sun. Without the ozone layer, animals and plants could not exist on land, and the balance of oceanic life would be destroyed. For years, Molina's ideas were dismissed and ridiculed by the chemical industry, but in 1985, a huge hole in the earth's ozone layer was discovered above Antarctica, and Molina's hypothesis was vindicated. Today, the nations of the earth have collectively abandoned the use of CFCs, and a global environmental catastrophe has been averted. Mario Molina was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery. He is the first Mexican-born scientist to receive the chemistry prize. Today, he continues his work in the United States and Mexico, to prevent and repair human-made damage to the earth's atmosphere."/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Mario J. Molina, Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">Mario Molina was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California in 1974 when he published a paper in the journal <i>Nature</i>, outlining the threat to the environment posed by chemicals used in everyday spray cans, refrigerators and air conditioners. Chlorofluorocarbons -- CFCs -- were destroying the earth's ozone layer, the atmospheric shield that protects living organisms from the ultraviolet radiation of the sun. Without the ozone layer, animals and plants could not exist on land, and the balance of oceanic life would be destroyed.</p> <p class="inputText">For years, Molina's ideas were dismissed and ridiculed by the chemical industry, but in 1985, a huge hole in the earth's ozone layer was discovered above Antarctica, and Molina's hypothesis was vindicated. Today, the nations of the earth have collectively abandoned the use of CFCs, and a global environmental catastrophe has been averted.</p> <p class="inputText">Mario Molina was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery. He is the first Mexican-born scientist to receive the chemistry prize. Today, he continues his work in the United States and Mexico, to prevent and repair human-made damage to the earth's atmosphere.</p>"/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/molina-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">Mario Molina was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California in 1974 when he published a paper in the journal <i>Nature</i>, outlining the threat to the environment posed by chemicals used in everyday spray cans, refrigerators and air conditioners. Chlorofluorocarbons -- CFCs -- were destroying the earth's ozone layer, the atmospheric shield that protects living organisms from the ultraviolet radiation of the sun. Without the ozone layer, animals and plants could not exist on land, and the balance of oceanic life would be destroyed.</p> <p class="inputText">For years, Molina's ideas were dismissed and ridiculed by the chemical industry, but in 1985, a huge hole in the earth's ozone layer was discovered above Antarctica, and Molina's hypothesis was vindicated. Today, the nations of the earth have collectively abandoned the use of CFCs, and a global environmental catastrophe has been averted.</p> <p class="inputText">Mario Molina was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery. He is the first Mexican-born scientist to receive the chemistry prize. Today, he continues his work in the United States and Mexico, to prevent and repair human-made damage to the earth's atmosphere.</p>"/> <meta name="twitter:title" content="Mario J. Molina, Ph.D. - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="twitter:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/molina-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/> <script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20181025071351\/http:\/\/schema.org","@type":"WebSite","@id":"#website","url":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20181025071351\/http:\/\/www.achievement.org\/","name":"Academy of Achievement","alternateName":"A museum of living history","potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20181025071351\/http:\/\/www.achievement.org\/search\/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}</script> <script 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[(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/06/molina-2-Feature-Image-2800x1120-1400x560.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Nobel Prize in Chemistry</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-11837 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-chemist"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane fade in active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">Finding out for myself, for the first time, how something works is really an enormous driving force.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Environmental Crusader</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> March 19, 1943 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p>José Mario Molina-Pasqual Henriquez was born and raised in Mexico City. From an early age, Mario was fascinated by the natural sciences. When he encountered his first microscope, he was thrilled to observe the organisms living in a drop of ordinary pond water. His father was a prominent attorney; when Mario was grown, the elder Molina would serve his country as Ambassador to Ethiopia, Australia and the Philippines.</p> <figure id="attachment_24783" style="width: 2102px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24783 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA9.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24783 size-full lazyload" alt="A young Mario Molina enjoys a birthday with his family in Mexico City in the early 1950s. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" width="2102" height="1503" data-sizes="(max-width: 2102px) 100vw, 2102px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA9.jpg 2102w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA9-380x272.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA9-760x543.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA9.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">A young Mario Molina enjoys a birthday with his family in Mexico City in the early 1950s. (Courtesy of Mario Molina)</figcaption></figure><p>Many of the Molinas were educated professionals, but the only scientist in the family was Mario’s aunt, Esther Molina, a chemist who encouraged his love of the sciences. Young Mario acquired chemistry sets and built his own laboratory in an unused bathroom of the family home. The other major interest of his childhood was music. He played the violin and considered the possibility of a career in music, but found himself increasingly drawn to chemistry, and enjoyed reading biographies of the great chemists. At age 11, he was sent briefly to a boarding school in Switzerland to begin the study of German, a language his parents hoped would be useful to a budding chemist.</p> <figure id="attachment_24780" style="width: 1924px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24780 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/molina-2.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24780 size-full lazyload" alt="Frank Sherwood Rowland, an atmospheric chemist, works in the lab with with his colleague, postdoctoral researcher Mario J. Molina, in January 1975, at the University of California, Irvine. Twenty years later, they shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry — along with Paul J. Crutzen — "for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone."" width="1924" height="1269" data-sizes="(max-width: 1924px) 100vw, 1924px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/molina-2.jpg 1924w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/molina-2-380x251.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/molina-2-760x501.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/molina-2.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1975: F. Sherwood Rowland, an atmospheric chemist, works in the lab with with his colleague, postdoctoral researcher Mario Molina, at University of California, Irvine. Twenty years later, they shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for their work in atmospheric chemistry, concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone.”</figcaption></figure><p>He returned to Mexico City to complete his secondary education and went on to the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM), where he studied chemical engineering, a course that provided more training in mathematics than was available in the pure chemistry curriculum. After receiving his chemical engineering degree, Molina enrolled in graduate courses at the University of Freiburg, Germany, where she spent two years carrying out research in the kinetics of polymerization. He had arrived in Freiburg feeling somewhat underprepared in math and physics, and after completing his work at Freiburg, he traveled to Paris for a few months of intensive mathematical study. Molina hoped to pursue doctoral studies in the United States, but returned to Mexico first, to teach at UNAM, where he established the first graduate program in chemical engineering.</p> <figure id="attachment_24789" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24789 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA26.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24789 size-full lazyload" alt="Actor and environmentalist Lorne Greene presents the John and Alice Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement to Harold S. Johnston, Mario Molina, and Molina's mentor, Sherwood Rowland, in a 1983 ceremony in Los Angeles, California. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" width="2280" height="1528" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA26.jpg 2280w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA26-380x255.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA26-760x509.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA26.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Actor and environmentalist Lorne Greene presents the John and Alice Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement to Harold S. Johnston, Mario Molina, and Molina’s mentor, Sherwood Rowland, in a 1983 ceremony in Los Angeles.</figcaption></figure><p>In 1968, Molina enrolled in the Ph.D. program in physical chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. There he expanded his knowledge of physics and mathematics as well as physical chemistry, and joined a research group led by Professor George Pimentel; he would later credit Pimentel as a great influence on his development as a scientist. Under Pimentel’s direction, Molina conducted important research employing chemical lasers. He was among the first to determine that irregularities in laser behavior that had been dismissed as noise were in fact “relaxation oscillations” that could be readily understood through the fundamental equations of laser emission. The Berkeley campus of the late ’60s and early ’70s was still reeling from the tumultuous political events of the preceding years, and for the first time, Mario Molina began to consider the social implications of scientific research, specifically the possible destructive application of laser technology in warfare.</p> <figure id="attachment_24779" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24779 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA2.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24779 size-full lazyload" alt="Dr. Mario Molina receives the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" width="2280" height="1614" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA2.jpg 2280w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA2-380x269.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA2-760x538.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA2.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Mario J. Molina receives the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden in Stockholm.</figcaption></figure><p>Molina completed his doctorate in 1972, and remained in Berkeley for another year, continuing his research in chemical dynamics, before joining the research group led by Professor Sherwood “Sherry” Rowland at the University of California, Irvine. Rowland offered his young postdoctoral fellow a choice of research options, and Molina’s eye fell on the question of chlorofluorocarbons, industrial chemicals, apparently harmless to man, which were known to accumulate in the atmosphere.</p> <figure id="attachment_24786" style="width: 1859px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24786 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA19.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24786 size-full lazyload" alt="Mario Molina (second from right) joins President Clinton and Vice President Gore at the White House Roundtable on Global Climate Change. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" width="1859" height="1286" data-sizes="(max-width: 1859px) 100vw, 1859px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA19.jpg 1859w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA19-380x263.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA19-760x526.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA19.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Dr. Molina joins President Clinton and Vice President Gore at White House Roundtable on Global Climate Change.</figcaption></figure><p>Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), of which the most common form were the hydrochlorofluorocarbons, produced by the DuPont Company under the brand name “Freon,” were widely used in refrigeration, as a propellant in aerosol spray cans and in the manufacture of plastic foam. Molina and Rowland were very familiar with the chemical properties of these compounds, but not with their behavior in the atmosphere. What became of CFCs after they were released was an intrinsically interesting problem, although Molina had no reason to believe that the circulation of these gases in the atmosphere posed any particular danger to living things, since they are not toxic in themselves.</p> <figure id="attachment_24781" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24781 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA3.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24781 size-full lazyload" alt="2000: Mario Molina in his laboratory at MIT. In 1989, he joined the faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He left MIT and returned to California in 2004 to teach at the University of California, San Diego. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" width="2280" height="1544" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA3.jpg 2280w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA3-380x257.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA3-760x515.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA3.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2000: Mario Molina in his laboratory at MIT. In 1989, he joined the faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He left MIT and returned to California in 2004 to teach chemistry at the University of California, San Diego.</figcaption></figure><p>Molina learned that these compounds ascend intact into the stratosphere. There, it was expected that solar radiation would destroy them. What Molina found was that CFCs exposed to solar radiation in the stratosphere break down into their component elements, producing a high concentration of pure chlorine atoms. Chlorine, he knew, destroys ozone. A layer of ozone in the stratosphere — between nine and 31 miles above the earth — is what protects living things from the ultraviolet rays of the sun. If sufficient CFCs were released into the atmosphere, the ozone layer would be so depleted that the unfiltered ultraviolet rays reaching the earth’s surface would cause increased rates of skin cancer, cataracts and immune disorders among humans, as well as damage to agricultural crops and to the marine phytoplankton essential to the ecological balance of the world’s oceans. A pure research problem had presented a serious social question. Molina shared his findings with Professor Rowland, as well as other chemists and atmospheric scientists. Everywhere, they found confirmation of their worst suspicions: the volume of CFCs being released into the atmosphere was indeed great enough to damage the ozone layer. What Molina lacked was evidence that such damage had already taken place.</p> <figure id="attachment_28793" style="width: 1467px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-28793 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WP-2001-molina-img042.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-28793 size-full lazyload" alt="Mario Molina, 2001 Banquet of the Golden Plate" width="1467" height="1448" data-sizes="(max-width: 1467px) 100vw, 1467px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WP-2001-molina-img042.jpg 1467w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WP-2001-molina-img042-380x375.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WP-2001-molina-img042-760x750.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WP-2001-molina-img042.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2001: Council member Dr. Mario J. Molina presents the American Academy of Achievement’s Golden Plate Award to Dr. Herbert Kroemer, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, at the 2001 Achievement Summit in San Antonio.</figcaption></figure><p>Molina and Rowland published their findings in a 1974 issue of the journal <em>Nature</em>. The alarming conclusion of their study attracted considerable attention, but when they called for a halt to the production of CFCs, they were met with intense criticism and even ridicule from industry interests and from more cautious members of the scientific community. One industrialist was reported as calling their theory “a science fiction tale… a load of rubbish… utter nonsense.” Another wrote to the University of California to complain. Molina took his case to a larger public, and testified before a committee of the U.S. Congress. Despite resistance from industry, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a report in 1976 that confirmed the essential premises of Molina’s ozone depletion hypothesis, and more resources were assigned to study the problem.</p> <figure id="attachment_24758" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24758 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-22009026corbis.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24758 size-full lazyload" alt="March 26, 2009: Political scientist Jose Woldenberg; scientist and Nobel Prize in Chemistry recipient Mario Molina; historian Enrique Krauze; and president of the Colegio de Mexico, Javier Garciadiego, receive the "Great Cross of Isabel the Catholic" prize during a ceremony held in Mexico City. (Corbis)" width="2280" height="1545" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-22009026corbis.jpg 2280w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-22009026corbis-380x258.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-22009026corbis-760x515.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-22009026corbis.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2009: Political scientist Jose Woldenberg; Mario Molina; historian Enrique Krauze; and president of the Colegio de Mexico, Javier Garciadiego, receive the “Great Cross of Isabel the Catholic” Prize at a ceremony in Mexico City.</figcaption></figure><p>Meanwhile, Molina accepted a faculty appointment at Irvine, where he established an independent program to study the atmospheric impact of other industrial chemicals. The academic duties of this professorship took more time from his laboratory research than he cared for, and in 1982 he transferred to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, where he could continue hands-on research.</p> <p>In 1985, scientists of the British Antarctic Survey detected a large and growing gap in the ozone layer over the earth’s Southern Hemisphere. Although the “ozone hole” was centered over Antarctica, its growth appeared to correspond with a dramatic increase in skin cancer rates in Australia and other countries of the Southern Hemisphere. Molina and his group were able to demonstrate that the ice crystals in the polar stratosphere had amplified the ozone-destructive capacity of CFCs. They also determined that chlorine peroxide, a previously unstudied compound, was contributing significantly to the depletion of the ozone layer over the Antarctic.</p> <figure id="attachment_24755" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24755 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/35-drmolina_lindau_2_julio2012.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24755 size-full lazyload" alt="2012: Professor Mario Molina presents "The Science and Policy of Climate Change" during the 62nd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting." width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/35-drmolina_lindau_2_julio2012.jpg 2280w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/35-drmolina_lindau_2_julio2012-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/35-drmolina_lindau_2_julio2012-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/35-drmolina_lindau_2_julio2012.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2012: Dr. Molina presents “The Science and Policy of Climate Change” during the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.</figcaption></figure><p>The announcement vindicated Molina’s hypothesis and galvanized public opinion. By the end of 1985, 20 nations, including most of the major CFC producers, signed the Vienna Convention, which established a framework for negotiating international regulation of ozone-depleting substances. The Vienna Convention was soon amended by the Montreal Protocol, pledging the signatories to end CFC emissions. Industry groups continued to protest that the evidence was unclear. In 1987, representatives of DuPont testified before the U.S. Congress that “there is no immediate crisis that demands unilateral regulation.” Despite this resistance, world leaders, including environmental skeptics such as President Ronald Reagan of the U.S. and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the U.K., signed the protocol in 1987, and more nations quickly followed. Nearly 200 states, including every member of the United Nations, have now ratified the protocol. Production of CFCs has all but stopped. Economically viable alternatives to the offending chemicals have been found, further damage to atmospheric ozone has halted and it is expected that by the midway point of the current century the ozone layer will have recovered completely.</p> <figure id="attachment_24792" style="width: 2088px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24792 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Presidencia-1.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24792 size-full lazyload" alt="December 2015: Dr. Molina with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto during the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, France. Molina is a climate policy adviser to President Peña Nieto." width="2088" height="1546" data-sizes="(max-width: 2088px) 100vw, 2088px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Presidencia-1.jpg 2088w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Presidencia-1-380x281.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Presidencia-1-760x563.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Presidencia-1.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">December 2015: Dr. Mario J. Molina with Enrique Peña Nieto, President of Mexico, during the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, France. Nobel Prize laureate Molina is a climate policy adviser to President Peña Nieto.</figcaption></figure><p>In 1989, Mario Molina returned to academic life at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he continued his research on global atmospheric issues. Dr. Molina received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for “contributing to our salvation from a potential global environmental catastrophe.” Asteroid 9680 Molina was later named in his honor. In 2005, Molina moved from MIT to join the University of California at San Diego and the Center of Atmospheric Sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He now divides his time between San Diego and his native Mexico City, where he has created a center for strategic studies in energy and the environment. Much of his current work is related to issues of air quality and development. His center in Mexico is working to improve the notoriously poor air quality of the capital, while his laboratory in San Diego investigates the chemical properties of atmospheric particles.</p> <figure id="attachment_24790" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24790 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Obama_Medal_of_Freedo_Patr6.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24790 size-full lazyload" alt="President Barack Obama awards chemist, and Nobel Prize laureate Mario Molina with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)" width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Obama_Medal_of_Freedo_Patr6.jpg 2280w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Obama_Medal_of_Freedo_Patr6-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Obama_Medal_of_Freedo_Patr6-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Obama_Medal_of_Freedo_Patr6.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">President Barack Obama awards chemist, and Nobel Prize laureate Mario Molina with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP)</figcaption></figure><p>Dr. Molina is married to Guadalupe Alvarez; his son by a previous marriage is a practicing physician in Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to his academic and research responsibilities, Dr. Molina has served on the boards of numerous foundations and on the President’s Committee of Advisors in Science and Technology. In 2008, he served as an environmental advisor on the transition team of President Barack Obama. The President recognized Dr. Molina’s service in 2013 with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.</p></body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 1996 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.chemist">Chemist</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> March 19, 1943 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p class="inputTextFirst">Mario Molina was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California in 1974 when he published a paper in the journal <i>Nature</i>, outlining the threat to the environment posed by chemicals used in everyday spray cans, refrigerators and air conditioners. Chlorofluorocarbons — CFCs — were destroying the earth’s ozone layer, the atmospheric shield that protects living organisms from the ultraviolet radiation of the sun. Without the ozone layer, animals and plants could not exist on land, and the balance of oceanic life would be destroyed.</p> <p class="inputText">For years, Molina’s ideas were dismissed and ridiculed by the chemical industry, but in 1985, a huge hole in the earth’s ozone layer was discovered above Antarctica, and Molina’s hypothesis was vindicated. Today, the nations of the earth have collectively abandoned the use of CFCs, and a global environmental catastrophe has been averted.</p> <p class="inputText">Mario Molina was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery. He is the first Mexican-born scientist to receive the chemistry prize. Today, he continues his work in the United States and Mexico, to prevent and repair human-made damage to the earth’s atmosphere.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/vkrRIV4oyuw?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.01_00_59_15.Still016-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.01_00_59_15.Still016-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Environmental Crusader</h2> <div class="sans-2">Sun Valley, Idaho</div> <div class="sans-2">June 29, 1996</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Professor Molina, you were honored with the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for your work dealing with the depletion of the ozone in the earth’s atmosphere. It appears you were always motivated by curiosity about nature, but how did you first become involved in this particular subject?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/KQ7M1dYJcxU?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_55_31_07.Still014-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_55_31_07.Still014-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Mario Molina: When I finished my Ph.D., I moved to Irvine, one of the campuses of the University of California, working with Sherry Rowland. Professor Rowland had a group doing very basic science at that time. But as a postdoctoral student — that’s how I joined his group — we decided to move into a new field for us, which was the chemistry of the atmosphere. And again, it was a question of originating just with curiosity. We knew that there were certain industrial compounds that were being released into the atmosphere. The type of chemicals that were being released were similar to those that we were studying from a very fundamental point of view — chemical properties, and so on. How the reactions take place. But something new happened at that time that I had not done in my earlier stories, which is looking at the natural environment. Looking at the way the world functions as a whole. In other words, we became interested in environmental issues. So it was a new field for me at that time. But it was this basic drive, basic curiosity, to find out how things work. In this case, not how it works, but what is the consequence of society releasing something to the environment that wasn’t there before. Could you do any damage? Perhaps not, but we thought it was important to find out anyhow. So that’s how we got started in that problem, and of course eventually realized that there’s not something we were expecting at the beginning, but we did realize that there were important consequences from this apparently harmless human activity of releasing these gases which are not toxic at all, but eventually they decompose and indeed can affect the ozone layer in very significant ways. So it’s again, just that drive of understanding how things work — in this case, what are the consequences of certain activities of society — that motivated us to solve these problems.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_24757" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24757 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-20327842corbis.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24757 size-full lazyload" alt="October 1995: Mario Molina, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Brooks Kraft/Sygma/Corbis)" width="2280" height="3424" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-20327842corbis.jpg 2280w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-20327842corbis-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-20327842corbis-506x760.jpg 506w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-20327842corbis.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">October 1995: Mario Molina, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Corbis)</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Your findings were not immediately embraced by the rest of the world. You eventually succeeded, but what kind of obstacles did you meet along the road?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/X7SCDfH1ECg?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_58_43_04.Still015-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_58_43_04.Still015-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Mario Molina: In terms of this issue of these industrial gases affecting the environment, at the beginning the road was not easy, because we were suggesting that society had to change, that industries had to do something different than they were doing at that time. And of course, initially we did not meet with a good reception to these ideas from industry. And even from the scientific community — even though our ideas were well received in the small group of specialists in what we were doing — it was not necessarily well received by the scientific community at large. So we really had to continue doing as good a science as we could, and at the same time trying to well communicate our conviction that it was something important, something that had to change in the way society was functioning.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_24778" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24778 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA1.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24778 size-full lazyload" alt="The 1995 Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. The 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Paul J. Crutzen, Mario J. Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland "for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone." (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" width="2280" height="1527" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA1.jpg 2280w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA1-380x255.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA1-760x509.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA1.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">The 1995 Nobel Prize ceremony at the Stockholm Concert Hall in Stockholm, Sweden. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Dr. Paul J. Crutzen, Dr. Mario J. Molina and Dr. F. Sherwood Rowland “for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone.”</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Once you made this discovery, did you feel a responsibility to get the word out that the world was endangered because of manmade chemicals?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Yes, it was very important.</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/TUegchtZHzc?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_39_26_05.Still012-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_39_26_05.Still012-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>It’s a conscious decision that Sherry Rowland and I did, not just to communicate our findings to other scientists, but to actually try to do something about it. In some sense that was taking a risk. Of course, the signs of the ozone layer and the effects of industrial chemicals was not nearly as well established at that time as it is now. We were just convinced that it was very important to find out. On the other hand, we were taking a risk, in that it’s not a normal role expected of scientists. Our peers were perhaps questioning whether we were just seeking publicity or not. But again, we thought it was not important enough just to preserve our image in the scientific community, compared to what we really thought we had to do, which is to find out more about the problem and let the governments know more about it, so that eventually some action could be taken. And that’s indeed what happened.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_24785" style="width: 2238px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24785 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA17.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24785 size-full lazyload" alt="President Clinton welcomes Mario Molina to the 1997 White House Roundtable on Global Climate Change." width="2238" height="1517" data-sizes="(max-width: 2238px) 100vw, 2238px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA17.jpg 2238w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA17-380x258.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA17-760x515.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA17.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">President Bill Clinton welcomes Mario Molina to the 1997 White House Roundtable on Global Climate Change.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Did you feel you needed to defend your integrity after receiving this criticism?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Yes, that was a very important aspect.</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/z1tMYKpTwSE?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_15_03_17.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_15_03_17.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>It’s easy to exaggerate problems as well, so we have to be very cautious. We have to always preserve our integrity as scientists. Even though we were advocates in terms of trying to get society to do something about it, we had to continue with honesty, in terms of how to express these fears, for example, to the news media. It’s easy to try to exaggerate the problems just to get more attention. So for me, it was very clear that the best way to deal with that was to do the best science that I was capable of doing. Furthermore, to try to distinguish clearly when I was talking as a scientist, in contrast to talking just as a person with value judgments, in terms of thinking that society should do something about it, but that’s not necessarily the scientific issue. That’s more a conviction issue.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_24770" style="width: 1200px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24770 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/honoriscausa_harvard_honorands.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24770 size-full lazyload" alt="During the Morning Exercises of the 361st Commencement, on May 24, Harvard conferred honorary degrees on eight distinguished guests — among them two Nobel laureates, an American civil rights pioneer, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer. The 2012 honorary-degree recipients: back row from left: Walter Kohn, John Adams, Provost Alan Garber, President Drew Faust, Fareed Zakaria, Mario Molina, and K. Anthony Appiah. Front row from left: Gillian Beer, John Lewis, and Wendy Kopp." width="1200" height="900" data-sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/honoriscausa_harvard_honorands.jpg 1200w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/honoriscausa_harvard_honorands-380x285.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/honoriscausa_harvard_honorands-760x570.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/honoriscausa_harvard_honorands.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">During the 361st Commencement, Harvard conferred honorary degrees on eight distinguished guests — among them two Nobel laureates, an American civil rights pioneer, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer. The 2012 honorary-degree recipients: back row from left: Walter Kohn, John Adams, Alan Garber, Drew Faust, Fareed Zakaria, Mario Molina, and K. Anthony Appiah. Front row from left: Gillian Beer, John Lewis, and Wendy Kopp.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Did you ever have any doubts about your work or any worry about failing?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/CC7FPFuIS_I?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_33_18_15.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_33_18_15.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Mario Molina: Shortly after we realized the potential implications of our findings in terms of environmental effects, we were not entirely sure that we were right. We just thought that it was sufficiently important that we had to find out more about it. So that’s the nature of scientific discoveries. When you first sort of get into a new problem, you’re not sure what the outcome is going to be, so you’re always taking risks. In this case, the risk was even larger, because we were suggesting that our findings had to lead to some changes in industry. So that was a big risk, but we thought it was certainly necessary to take it, and again, it was just a conviction of the problem was serious that led us to continue doing good science. And of course, I should point out it’s very important that it’s work that we did with the rest of the scientific community, a small group of scientists, all working in this field. We eventually all worked together, and this community really succeeded in — to do first-rate science, and to establish very clearly that the problem indeed is a very serious one.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_24791" style="width: 1279px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24791 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/pcast_obama_nov13.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24791 size-full lazyload" alt="November 2013: The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). PCAST is an advisory group of the nation’s leading scientists and engineers who directly advise the President and the Executive Office of the President." width="1279" height="850" data-sizes="(max-width: 1279px) 100vw, 1279px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/pcast_obama_nov13.jpg 1279w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/pcast_obama_nov13-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/pcast_obama_nov13-760x505.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/pcast_obama_nov13.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2013: The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). PCAST is an advisory group of the nation’s leading scientists and engineers who advise the President and the Executive Office of the President.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Can you recall the moment when you first realized that the ozone layer was threatened? Did it feel anything like the joy a child feels, discovering the world of science for the first time?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/aVOsrAgRzGo?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_12_12_05.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_12_12_05.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Mario Molina: It was indeed something that happened suddenly. Because we had realized that these compounds would actually reach the stratosphere, that they could decompose there, and in fact I even knew without too much trouble that these compounds could actually affect ozone to some extent. But I remember clearly one day — actually doing calculations, finding out how much of these compounds reaches the stratosphere, and comparing that with some natural processes — that I realized that the problem was really potentially very serious. So it seemed, in a sense, a moment of discovery. But it was different from the earlier ones I had as a child, because I was also very worried. It was not also, in this case, the scientific discovery, but also a discovery about something that could damage the environment. So it all seemed to be bad news at that time, and that’s why it has been very rewarding much more recently, not just to have discovered that there was this potential danger, but also to have realized that society can actually do something about it. And so that’s why I sense that, believe it’s really a success story. Very different from that day in which I got very worried, because now essentially the international agreements recognize the problem and call for completely stopping the production of these chemicals that can harm the environment.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p><strong>Was there a particular calculation you made that led to this conclusion?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: It was, indeed, just putting together all the information that we had, and putting it in context, and realizing that it’s just the way one sets off a scientific hypothesis, a sequence of steps with these very serious consequences. So it’s really just a moment when you put all this information together and realize that you have something important in front of you.</p> <figure id="attachment_24793" style="width: 675px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24793 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/presidenciafrancesa_2.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24793 size-full lazyload" alt="April 2014 - French President François Hollande presented Molina with the Order of the Legion of Honor, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the French government." width="675" height="430" data-sizes="(max-width: 675px) 100vw, 675px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/presidenciafrancesa_2.jpg 675w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/presidenciafrancesa_2-380x242.jpg 380w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/presidenciafrancesa_2.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">April 2014 – French President François Hollande presented Molina with the Order of the Legion of Honor, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the French government.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>How did you determine that these particular compounds — the chlorofluorocarbons — were threatening the ozone layer?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/0i34l5DO2Ns?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_35_40_07.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_35_40_07.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Mario Molina: It really started asking the question, “What happens to these compounds once released to the environment?” Our starting point was that these compounds have been measured to be throughout the atmosphere. Not just close to cities, but in the Northern Hemisphere, the Southern Hemisphere. That was just a starting point. These compounds are very stable. They are non-toxic, you can even breathe them. So the assumption was that there was no worry, because of the presence of these relatively small amounts — parts per trillion amount — of these compounds in the global environment. So that was just the starting point. The rest was just scientific research. We were asking the question, “What happens to these compounds?” We realized that they would eventually diffuse to the stratosphere, because nothing else would destroy them. In the stratosphere they would be destroyed, but that was not the end of the question. We had to pursue it several steps more. So what? And we had to follow what happens to the decomposition products from these compounds, and that’s of course where the effects on ozone begin. So it’s really taken a complete — an overall — picture of the problem that led us to our discoveries.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_24765" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24765 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DrMolina_davos2015.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24765 size-full lazyload" alt="January 24, 2015: Mario Molina and Al Gore at the 2015 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at the Davos Congress Centre." width="2280" height="1555" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DrMolina_davos2015.jpg 2280w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DrMolina_davos2015-380x259.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DrMolina_davos2015-760x518.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DrMolina_davos2015.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2015: Mario Molina and Al Gore at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at the Davos Congress Centre.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>You were able to predict the existence of a hole in the ozone layer as early as 1974, but it wasn’t until 11 years later that the hole was actually discovered. Were you at all nervous about that, before the hole was actually found? What was your reaction to that discovery?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/UjEYYhzo3G8?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-Upscale-1of3.00_50_51_00.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-Upscale-1of3.00_50_51_00.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Mario Molina: Of course, we were not sure. We realized that the atmosphere is very complicated and that we didn’t know — certainly by far — everything that there is to know about it. On the other hand, pieces of evidence began to come for measurements. Experiments were carried out, and we know that these gases were indeed reaching the stratosphere — the CFCs. We know that the composition products were indeed there, but it was very difficult to measure these actual effects on ozone, because the ozone amounts in the stratosphere fluctuate. On the other hand, we actually did not predict that ozone would be depleted specifically over Antarctica. We just made a very general prediction that these — the composition products — could affect the ozone layer in general terms. So it actually came as a surprise that this large effect was happening in this coldest place on earth. On the other hand, with all the scientific research that had been carried out before the Antarctic ozone hole was found, it was just a matter of a few years for us and the rest of the scientific community to understand — with experiments in the laboratory as well as in the atmosphere — very clearly why is it that specifically Antarctica was the place where this hole appeared. And the reason, of course, is that it’s very cold there, and clouds can actually form over Antarctica that do not form anywhere else in the stratosphere that are sufficiently cold to promote a new type of chemistry that we then investigated in the laboratory. So in other words, what happens is even though our predictions were not very specific, we lay down, together with our colleagues, a foundation and an infrastructure to really understand on a very rapid time scale the nature of all these effects once they became clear.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_24773" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24773 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mario_molina_corazon01.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24773 size-full lazyload" alt="2016: Professor Molina was awarded the Lionheart medal by the Federation of University Students (FEU) at the University of Guadalajara." width="2280" height="1520" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mario_molina_corazon01.jpg 2280w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mario_molina_corazon01-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mario_molina_corazon01-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mario_molina_corazon01.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2016: Molina was awarded the Lionheart medal by Federation of University Students at University of Guadalajara.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>You faced intense opposition from many sectors, especially industry. Can you recall for us some of the harshest criticism you faced, and how you reacted to that?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/lyvjgh9liI8?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_33_18_15.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Molina-Mario-1996-MasterEdit.00_33_18_15.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/perseverance/">Perseverance</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>Mario Molina: I remember in some scientific meetings, again, arguing about the uncertainties of the problem. And there was not that much disagreement in terms of the science itself with our industry colleagues. It was more either in the public relations arena, or else in terms of whether to advise society to do something about it or not. I remember very well my attitude at that time was that, at the very least, industry should do some research on potential replacements for these compounds. At the same time, of course, we had to know more about the atmosphere, but we had to begin thinking about the possibility of regulating these chemicals. And that’s of course what industry was opposed to do at the beginning, because they wanted more scientific evidence. But eventually we came together on what the scientific evidence indeed was. Very clear. We started to work in a collaborative mode, and that’s what made it possible to reach these international agreements, the Montreal Protocol and so on, on a very short time scale.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_24760" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-24760 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2013-domain-winter-mario-molina-001-b.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-24760 size-full lazyload" alt="2013: Professor Mario Molina" width="2280" height="3420" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2013-domain-winter-mario-molina-001-b.jpg 2280w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2013-domain-winter-mario-molina-001-b-253x380.jpg 253w, /web/20181025071351im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2013-domain-winter-mario-molina-001-b-507x760.jpg 507w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181025071351/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2013-domain-winter-mario-molina-001-b.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">2013: Professor Mario Molina</figcaption></figure></body></html> </div>    <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>Is that aspect the most satisfying for you, to see those agreements come about because of your work?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Yes, indeed. Two aspects. One is that they were reached with collaboration among all these different groups. And the second aspect is that they are working, that all the industrialized countries are actually following the Montreal Protocol. It’s not perfect. There are some problems here and there, but overall it’s indeed the case that these compounds, these CFCs, are no longer being manufactured. It’s also an important aspect of this problem, this precedent that industry and society can be very inventive. They were able to come up with technological solutions, so that we still have refrigeration, we still have spray cans, we have plastic foam. All the important uses of these compounds are still with us, and yet with these technological solutions, one could do that with compounds that are less damaging to the environment.</p> <p><strong>Are you satisfied with this achievement, bringing the world together on this important issue?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Well, it’s certainly very rewarding to see that indeed the world has responded, and that the nations of the world are doing something about this problem. To me, it’s a very important precedent. In this case, we had some very specific chemicals which were being made by a relatively small number of industries, so the problem could be solved. It was by no means easy. But to me it’s a very important precedent. I’m an optimist, so that shows to me that even for these much harder problems that we have, such as the use of energy worldwide, it is not going to be as easy to come up with an agreement. But nevertheless we know there’s an example out there that worked. So that means that we can also work to a solution of these other very challenging problems.</p> <p><strong>You and your colleagues made a discovery that may have literally saved the world. Do you think about that?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: What I really think is that it was the effort of the whole scientific community. Perhaps we started thinking about this problem, but the way I see it is having worked with an excellent group of colleagues. They all did excellent work. We, all together, planned experiments, showed in very clear ways, with very good science, that the effect is real. We eventually worked not just in the scientific community, but with economists, environmental organizations, lawyers, and certainly with industry itself. So for me, that’s what is very rewarding, to see that all these sectors of society, some of which we were fighting with to begin with, that we all came together and it’s indeed possible in this collaborative mode to come up with solutions to these problems.</p> <p><strong>Let’s talk a little bit about your background. Where are you from, and how you did you get started?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: I was born in Mexico City. I was born and raised in that city. I went to school — to college — in Mexico, eventually studying chemical engineering. But long before I went to college, I was already fascinated with science. I can remember playing with chemistry toys and microscopes and so on. So since I was a child, I really became very interested in science, and had as a goal to become a scientist and to pursue scientific research as a career. So eventually, when I finished college in Mexico, to become a researcher, I decided to go abroad. So first I spent a few years in Europe, and then eventually came to the United States, doing a Ph.D. at Berkeley in chemistry. That was the way in which I could actually achieve my goal of doing research for a living.</p> <p><strong>You mentioned that you were already interested in chemistry as a child. What fueled that interest in chemistry?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: I remember, as a very young child — just natural curiosity, I guess — just trying to find out how toys work, taking them apart and so on, and eventually doing the same thing with chemistry sets. So it was really before entering high school that I realized that chemistry and biology — at that time it was not very clear for me which of the two — but it was something fascinating for me. I began to read biographies of famous scientists. I also liked mathematics at that time, so I realized that I could combine this sort of natural curiosity to see how nature functions, with a creativity in terms of trying to quantify the way nature works. It was really, for me, just a natural development, I believe, just to keep this interest, this natural curiosity alive, which sometimes — through the natural process of going to school somewhere or other — it dies, or so. But for me, it was an obsession, and I was able to continue with it.</p> <p><strong>What do you think turned that childhood curiosity into that obsession? What drove you to achieve such greatness in this field?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: In order to really pursue research — if you want to — in order to really find new things, you have to be very motivated, and I was. Just having had experiences with discoveries, even things that had been discovered previously, but finding out for myself, for the first time, how something works, is really an enormous driving force. So to me it was, well, really liking very much what I was doing. And eventually, I saw an evolution in this passion to do science, that at the same time it could be something valuable for society. So there’s no conflict in this. To me, it was marvelous just to realize that I could actually be doing the things I like and at the same time getting paid for it and earn a living that way. But even once one step beyond, that this knowledge that one can acquire through research could actually benefit society. Of course, science itself is not good or bad. It can be misused, but developing the proper responsibility to society and so on, I could see ways in which one can actually use this knowledge to benefit the people around.</p> <p><strong>Were you a gifted child?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Well, I had no problems in school. In school, I believe I was practically always the first in my class, so it was relatively easy for me. In fact, one of the problems is that it often was rather boring and I found some of the routine classes uninteresting. So early on I did not have as a goal just to get good grades. And in fact, in college I really took off and studied mostly on my own, and not always went to class. But in fact the point is, the important thing for me was to learn, to pursue knowledge and research, and that was what motivated me.</p> <p><strong>You mentioned some books already that you read early on. What books did you read when you were young that especially inspired you?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: It was probably a series of biographies of scientists like Pasteur, or even earlier ones — Leeuwenhoek inventing the microscope and Madame Curie. I forget how many others, but it was really just, for me, a fascination to learn about these great heroes. At that time, of course, they were totally inaccessible, almost non-human, to me. It became very interesting to me.</p> <p><strong>Are there particular scientists that you especially admire and look up to?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Well, there are really very many. Again, as a child, it was obviously those scientists which had lived in the past that had made such an important mark in science history. But later on, there were really many others, and I got to know some of them eventually. I remember as a student in Berkeley, for me, the thrill it was to be able to meet so many Nobel Prizes. And perhaps the most important contact with scientists for me was my mentors, some of them. A mentor in my Ph.D. studies, Professor Pimentel, was really a marvelous person that really helped me out and formed me as a scientist. So there were a number of people that I was very close to that had an enormous influence on my career.</p> <p><strong>Can you recall a specific encounter you had, as a student, with one of the Nobel Prize winners that particularly inspired you?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: I don’t recall very specific names or instances, but just to see how open-minded the scientists were. They were really looking at the big picture. They were ready to tackle large problems, and they were also ready to admit that they didn’t know everything that there was to know. Those aspects of their attitude made a very big impact on me.</p> <p><strong>While we’re on the subject, now that students are approaching <em>you</em> as a Nobel Prize winner, what do you tell students to interest them in your field?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: First, I explain to them that doing research is indeed a fascinating activity. But I clarify that it’s not always easy. It’s sometimes frustrating. You carry out many experiments, not all of them work, and so you have to be patient. But in the end it’s extremely rewarding. I also try to explain this other aspect that it can be very rewarding when you realize that as a consequence of what you do in science, you can benefit other people. It’s really a very important aspect of the work we do, which I see through teaching. When I have students that work with me, and I see the progress they make, I see how I affect their lives. That’s a very important aspect of doing research.</p> <p><strong>Thinking back now, which teacher most challenged you, or opened up new possibilities for you?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: I had a number of very good teachers in high school, in fact. Some mathematics teachers that perhaps allowed me the freedom to go beyond the normal routine of the class and to explore some more advanced areas. The same thing happened in college. I was able to communicate with a few of my teachers and professors, and go beyond the normal expectations. And then, as I mentioned before, Professor Pimentel, my mentor for graduate studies, was really influential in terms of the influence that he had for me.</p> <p><strong>Was there any other person who inspired you when you were young?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: When I was very young — after I became interested in the chemistry sets — I had an aunt who was a chemist, and she really helped me with more sophisticated experiments, so we went well beyond the chemistry sets. Even in my first year in high school, I remember, we did experiments that were really college level. For me, that really opened up my eyes, that in principle I could do these other things as well.</p> <p><strong>What kind of experiments did you do in those days? Like many kids, making smoke bombs and that kind of thing?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: I started doing those, but I really moved fast into experiments with analytical chemistry, trying to find the chemical composition of all sorts of things around us. There were some very systematic ways of doing that. Perhaps that’s when I first realized how fascinating research can be. Finding out, sometimes through hard work, what sort of chemicals are in various things that we use. That was an awakening for me.</p> <p><strong>Was there any other experiment or experience that was a revelation to you, that further motivated you into pursuing this?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Perhaps the earliest experiences that I had — I can think of — where I realized the beauty of science, is playing with toy microscopes and discovering that I could get some water and let this rot, very bad smelling things. But the fascination of finding things moving there, and then discovering all the paramecia, and all the life that you cannot perceive just with your naked eyes — but then going beyond that, and actually trying to follow and see how these small living things reproduce, what they eat, and so on — it was just fascinating for me. It was not accessible with your naked eyes. It’s something that you have to do something about to learn.</p> <p><strong>What did you think about when you made these discoveries as a child, when you looked through the microscope for the first time?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: For me, it was just a thrill. I just remember thinking at that time, this is the sort of thing I would like to do, if I could. I did not come from a family of scientists. My father was a lawyer, my older brother was a lawyer. So for me, that was a world that I did not know about. Just to realize that there were people out there in the world that were doing this all the time, as a profession, was something that I couldn’t believe as a child.</p> <p><strong>What did your parents think of you pursuing this career?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Well, they certainly supported very much my career, in spite of not having a scientific tradition. Furthermore in Mexico — in Latin America, perhaps — the science tradition is not as well established as it might be in either Europe or the United States, so it’s not as common for children to become interested in this topic. I managed somehow or other to have friends just like everybody else, but for this hobby, for these activities, I was sort of on my own. It was not something I was sharing with other friends, but I certainly had support from family and teachers and so on.</p> <p><strong>Looking back, is there a moment you see as the first big break in your career?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: For me, moving from Europe to the United States was a very important step. I had gone through college in Mexico in an engineering field, but what I really wanted to do was scientific research. The reason I did that in Mexico is that I did my mathematics, physics, and for me that was the way to combine these, combine my scientific curiosity with mathematics and with chemistry at that time. But later, I realized I really had to switch to chemistry as a science. So coming to the United States, doing a Ph.D. in chemistry in Berkeley, it was at the beginning a difficult thing for me to do. I really had to sort of learn much of basic science that I had not learned earlier on, but I was able to do that with some hard work. Eventually, I saw that I could actually master all these subjects, get very good grades, and indeed start doing new research. We started finding out new ways in which molecules function, new ways in which chemical reactions take place. And again, that was really the sort of thing I was looking forward to work with since I was a child.</p> <p><strong>Do you think it’s important for students to leave their home countries, as you did, and travel through Europe and the United States?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: I think it’s very important to take advantage of the fact that the scientific community is really international. It’s very open. Certainly for environmental issues, this is the case, where information is freely exchanged. That’s why it’s important to communicate with the rest of the world. That’s why it’s important for students at some stage to go to different universities. It’s best perhaps if the excellent students are the ones that have opportunity to go abroad. The hope is that they go back and benefit their own countries. But in the end, much of the science that we do, because it’s international, we do it as a large group. There’s another important aspect that there’s some local problems for which you need a local perspective. And you need this combination of having access to the best there is in science, with the realization of what your local problems are, your local perspective. That’s what one needs to solve a variety of problems.</p> <p><strong>Could you tell us a bit about your studies in this country and in Europe?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: When I first went to Europe after finishing my college degree in chemical engineering, I went to Germany. At that time I was in transition between engineering and science. I was studying polymerization kinetics, something to do with plastics, not with the atmosphere. But I realized that it was going to be easier or better for me to come to the United States, because the graduate system was — it’s easier here to start again. And I felt I really had to, to become a scientist, to have the opportunity to take more courses, to take a little bit more time. It was really a definition time for me, again, a career of science. I spent some time in France before I came to the United States, mostly studying on my own. It was an important time for me. Not so much because of the science. I had a wonderful group of friends, and we discussed all sorts of problems facing society. Politics and what have you. Perhaps it’s those years that formed me in terms of social responsibility, if you want. So it’s important to have an overall view of the world as well. And then eventually, of course, getting a Ph.D. in Berkeley was pretty time consuming. I had to work very hard. But at the same time, those were very interesting times. A student movement, of course, was very much alive at that time. People’s Park in Berkeley was a big issue, so I could see around me all these changes that were going on in society. So this opportunity I had to live in many different places, I think, turned out to be important in terms of having a perspective of these big problems that society faces.</p> <p><strong>Do you think all this traveling gave you a global perspective on the great problem that you ultimately solved?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: That’s right. I now have the notion that it’s very important for this communication — not just between scientists, but in many different sectors of society — this globalization. It’s very important. These problems that we have, have to be tackled not just by one country, or by one group of people, but they have to be tackled by everybody together. So this internationalization of science is an essential aspect of the field.</p> <p><strong>How did you manage the language difficulties, studying abroad?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: I remember, of course, I had great difficulties when I first went to Germany. German’s a difficult language, and just knowing Spanish was not particularly helpful, so I actually spent quite a bit of time with the language. I eventually became very proud of being able to participate even in discussions about politics with my German friends. Then eventually, I spent some time in France. French was a lot easier. In fact, I remember also in Germany that the first language I learned was Italian, because it was so much easier for me, and I have some Italian friends, although I forgot most of it now. So by the time I came to the United States, of course I knew English only from high school, and from textbooks, but I certainly couldn’t speak it. But I didn’t devote nearly as much energy learning English as I did learning German. I guess I was lazy after that much time with the other languages! But it was so much easier, I guess. So I still regret not having spent more time, in first becoming a graduate student in the United States, with the language itself. But it was so time-consuming to keep up with the science that I just picked up whatever came in terms of the language.</p> <p><strong>What advice do you give your students about language acquisition and its role in science?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: What has happened is that English has become, as a matter of fact, the international language of science. So it’s really essential for scientists all over the world to master English as a language. It used to be the case, perhaps earlier in the century, that German or French were the languages that one had to know about, but that certainly has changed, and even language examinations here in the United States are no longer required to obtain a Ph.D. In some sense, I believe something has been lost here in the U.S. by not learning other languages, because one really needs to know how other cultures function, and the language is an important part of that. But certainly to scientists abroad, a very important piece of advice is to learn not just to read English, but to actually communicate very well, because that’s essential for this internationalization of science that we were talking about before.</p> <p><strong>Was there a particular person who gave you your first break? Could you tell us what he or she saw in you?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Perhaps it started in high school, with these teachers that I mentioned a little while ago, that allowed me the opportunity to go beyond the normal curriculum, to pursue some more complicated problems. But it was really in college. That’s the nature of a Ph.D. thesis, to try to find something new and then to find encouragement from your peers, and in those days, my Ph.D. advisor, Professor Pimentel, really encouraged me to pursue this line of thinking, to try to find new things, to look at the overall picture of how the world functions and go to more and more important problems.</p> <p><strong>Were you always confident that you were destined to be an achiever in this field? Were you hoping to make this kind of revelatory discovery?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Well, my motivation was not really to get prizes or so forth. It was the nature of the work itself. I was always motivated to discover new things, and at some stage combine them with things that affect society. So it’s this combination that was important for me. But perhaps it was natural then, that indeed, if the discoveries were important, if the impacts to society were important, that would be an additional dimension. I did not really consider it explicitly at the beginning.</p> <p><strong>How did your studies contribute to this understanding?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: One of the important aspects of scientific research is this attitude of learning continuously. In fact, the problem that we tackled — it has to do with the way chemicals function in the environment — is very interdisciplinary. So an aspect of solving this problem is to be ready to learn new fields. We have to learn how the atmosphere functions. So it’s a continuous learning, a continuous questioning also. So that’s where, of course, the biggest preparation that I had was very important. Of course, one needs a very solid preparation — in my case it was fundamental chemistry — but I had to learn many other things along the way.</p> <p><strong>Your 1974 paper on chlorofluorocarbons and the depletion of atmospheric ozone drew enormous attention. We’d like to find out more about how you responded to the criticism you encountered.</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: What we did initially was communicate with other scientists, like it’s normally done, to find out whether we were making some big mistake or not. Actually, our ideas were very well received in the small community that were experts in this field. It was more in terms of the implications of these findings that we had problems, and it was very clear that what we had to do is to continue learning more about this hypothesis that we initially had come up with. After all, we did not have much information in terms of actual measurements in the atmosphere to begin with. So what we saw as an important aspect of our role at that time was to make sure that the scientific community, as well as the government, take the problem seriously enough to put enough resources to find out more about the problem. And we succeeded with this effort — again with the help of many other colleagues — so that eventually many experiments could be carried out, to either verify or disprove this hypothesis that we were thinking of initially.</p> <p><strong>In addition to a passion for discovery, you feel a very strong drive to benefit mankind with your work. Can you talk about that for a moment?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Yes. I think it is pretty important to realize the consequences of these activities — on the one hand of myself as a scientist, doing research, how it can be used, but on the other hand, the consequences of all the way that society is evolving. I think we have some very challenging problems ahead of us. Population is growing at a tremendous rate. Developing countries are of course developing, and they need to achieve better standards of living. But that means that we’re going to face some very serious problems, particularly next century, as all these activities begin to have even more and more effects on the environment. So for me, it’s a very important drive to try to do something to make sure that society moves in the right direction, to make sure that our kids, future generations, have the same options that we have now. It’s just something that I’m convinced needs to be done.</p> <p><strong>On a global basis?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: On a global basis. I’m worried about two types of problems that we have. In terms of effects on the environment, one is very easy: pollution in cities. There are many large cities now, all over the world, that are highly polluted, and you just have to visit the cities and see what the problems are. If you take that pollution together with pollution coming from the burning of forests, for example, it’s beginning to be on such a large scale that it is becoming a global problem. And it’s only going to get worse as developing countries continue with their economic growth. And then we have a second set of problems, like the ones dealing with the ozone layer that I was involved with, that are not as visible. It’s not as obvious that they are happening. And that has to do with consequences on the global environment, effects that can occur far away from the places where the emissions occur. But if you take a combination of these two, that just means that the society has to move in new directions — again, to make sure that we can facilitate progress everywhere in the world, but not in the same way that it has happened in the past. Developing countries cannot develop in the same way that the industrialized nations of the West have done. There’s just no room for that much pollution in our planet, which after all, is not that large, considering how many people are coming on board.</p> <p><strong>Are there things you saw in your native land, Mexico, that inspired you to pursue this?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: When I was a child, nobody really worried about pollution in Mexico in general. It was something that, I remember thinking that it’s not something Mexico has a luxury to worry about. There were other more important worries. What’s really happened is that the pollution in Mexico City, for example, is so notorious, it’s so bad that it is very much a local worry. It is not a matter of not having the luxury to do that, but it’s essential to worry about it to prevent damage to the health of very many people. So there has been a very large change in attitude, certainly in Mexico, and in many other developing countries, that it’s not a luxury to worry about this, but it’s very important, because otherwise it costs a lot more to repair the damage. If you anticipate all these problems that can happen, you can achieve higher quality of life, higher standards of living, at a much lower cost. And of course, we have the example of the former Soviet Union and Eastern countries, where again, for them the environment — environmental effects — were very low priority. And of course, we’ve seen the enormous damage that many cities and many places have, and how terribly expensive it is to repair it now. So the message is that it’s not a luxury, it’s really essential to incorporate the environment as an integral part of the economy, as an integral part of what we require as quality of life.</p> <p><strong>Did the air pollution in Mexico City motivate your interest in this area?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: As a child, when I was living in Mexico, it was not something that I noticed very strongly, but more something that evolved when I was finishing my Ph.D. It was then, looking at what was happening in the world, that I realized I could actually combine this passion that I had to do scientific research, to do “pure science,” as we called it at the time. Now of course I call it “fundamental science.” It need not be pure in that sense. It could be applied. It could do some benefit for society. So it’s quite possible to do first-rate science, and at the same time, very applied in terms of solving actual problems, problems that society needs to get solved. So that’s an important conclusion that I arrived at much later. I didn’t have that vision when I was a very young student, this possibility of combining scientific research and finding solutions to problems at the same time, doing some benefit for society.</p> <p><strong>What vision did you have at that time, and how has that changed as you’ve increased your discoveries?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Well, early on I simply had the vision that finding out new things, finding out how nature works, discovering new aspects of knowledge that had been previously thought of, that that was important. I still think that, indirectly, that can only benefit society and mankind, particularly if it is not misused. Science itself may not be good or bad, but if it’s properly used we simply have more options to solve these difficult problems. But again, initially I did not make that close connection between discoveries and benefit to society. The change was to realize that there are so many important problems that we have, that it is essential to really try to solve them head on. To try to use some of our best minds to anticipate some even more serious problems that we might have next century, to ease the road for future generations.</p> <p><strong>What mystery would you like to explore now? What would you like to achieve that you have not quite reached yet?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: I certainly want to continue trying to understand how the global environment functions. The earth as a system is a very complicated one. And to understand it, we need very many disciplines, very many different scientists working together. I want to continue working with my specialty, which is chemistry, with the atmosphere. There is still much to learn about chemical reactions that occur out there in the air, in the atmosphere. So one of my projects now is to really learn more about this pollution that occurs in cities and that is spreading more through the globe. To learn it in enough detail so we can better tackle it, we can better come up with new ways of using energy, for example, that are not so damaging to the environment.</p> <p><strong>Many people have brains and potential. Why do you think you succeeded where others did not?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Perseverance is part of it. Much of it is perhaps luck. I was lucky to be able to pursue this passion that I had to do scientific research, and to have some very good colleagues, very good mentors. That’s why I also have a passion for education, to work with students — with my students, and others as well — and to try to make it possible for them to also have some great findings that will benefit us all.</p> <p><strong>The German poet Goethe’s last words were: “More light.” After a long life, as one of the great writers and thinkers of his day, he seemed to be calling out for more information, more enlightenment. Did you get that same feeling after making these discoveries? That you yourself wanted more light, more information?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Very much so. One of the frustrating aspects of being a scientist is that you want to learn more and more. There’s just no time, unfortunately. We can’t do it all. But I wish I could really continue learning how the world functions. Perhaps that’s why I try to do it through my students. I try to get an overall feel for the big system, for it’s a very complicated one. That’s why it’s essential that we collaborate among scientists and also with people outside the scientific world.</p> <p><strong>How do you inspire students to follow in your footsteps, to achieve this higher enlightenment?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Perhaps one way is really just by example. We do research together. We find out some aspects of nature, some aspects of chemistry, that are unknown. And it’s perhaps through example, by actually doing research, that I can best communicate this. And of course, lecturing. I also try to communicate the importance of these problems. In the end, of course, we have to keep in mind that it’s important to do very high-caliber science, and to preserve our integrity as scientists — honesty and all these qualities that we like to communicate to students. So there’s no single, simple recipe, but perhaps just by example is one of the best ways to do it.</p> <p><strong>What personal characteristics do you think are most important for success, regardless of what field someone chooses?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: I think you need to have a commitment, a passion to do whatever you are doing, as an activity that really consumes you. It has to be something important, something also that you enjoy, so that you can keep doing it. Something that transcends your own small world and has repercussions for all the people that surround you. But in my case, it’s a true commitment to scientific research, finding out new things and hoping that they will benefit other people as well.</p> <p><strong>What do you think is the greatest challenge for the 21st century?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: I think the greatest challenge will be to maintain the world population that is growing in such a way they will continue developing without damaging the environment to such an extent that the quality of life will be degraded. So the greatest challenge is to somehow or other be able to keep a stable world, a stable world population, increasing the standard of living of so many people who are gaining in ways that are different from what we have done in the past. That will take a lot of creativity, and a lot of work for many groups to be able to achieve.</p> <p><strong>Looking back on your own successes and failures, and what you’ve learned over the years, what advice would you give young people just starting out in your field?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: The advice that I would give is try to find something that you like. Try to devote your energies to being very good at it. Try to achieve excellence. Don’t necessarily have as a goal success or getting prizes or whatever, but just doing very good work. And work hard. Keep working at it. Be patient. Realize that you don’t always see the benefits of what you’re doing, short-term. But in the end, the activities that I do, for example, scientific research, can be extremely rewarding. It’s really a very fascinating career.</p> <p><strong>May we ask, what does the American Dream mean to you?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: What the American Dream means to me is that it’s really a world of opportunities. I came to the United States, of course, as a foreign student, but you really have the same opportunities as any other student that was born here or not, and have the opportunities to access whatever was available in the system, and to participate in the functioning of the society here. For example, at the moment I’m a member of PCAST, which is a presidential committee of advisors on science and technology. So it’s a group of people from the scientific world and from industry, and we advise the administration as to science policy and technology and so on. So it’s something that I can do, even though I was born in Mexico. As a foreigner to begin with — but of course very much so — I was part of the American Dream, if you want, of actively participating in the way the society functions in this country. So it’s really just a marvelous opportunity, this really openness, that the opportunity’s out there, you just have to work hard. And of course, part of it is local, so you have to have some love to be able to achieve. But at least you know that it’s open to everyone.</p> <p><strong>What do you know about achievement now that you didn’t know when you were younger? Did you ever picture this accomplishment?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Certainly not. As a young child, I remember just dreaming about the Nobel Prize, but that was just a dream. It’s not something I would have ever thought was possible for me. So achievement, to me, is something that just comes with this attitude of doing your work the best you can in a passionate way. It’s not something that you have to expect. It’s something that’s a consequence of what you do, but it’s certainly important. We talked about perseverance, hard work, motivation, and the realization that you are working together with other people, not just yourself. For it is the collection of efforts from groups of people that makes all this possible.</p> <p><strong>Could you share with us your thoughts on the day you actually received the Nobel Prize?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: I remember just going to work in my laboratory at MIT and receiving a call from Sweden. I didn’t know what it was about, and so they told me about the Nobel Prize. I guess my first reaction was disbelief. I was not prepared for that. But I have a good colleague in the Royal Academy of Sciences in Sweden who also was on the phone and talked to me, so I realized it was for real. And of course I was very happy for me and my colleagues, and for the fact that the Nobel Prize could be given also in the environmental sciences. Of course, we were showing that one could do first-rate science and at the same time in a new field, a field that had not been singled out for Nobel Prizes in the past. So it was, of course, just a wonderful day for celebration with my students and with other colleagues.</p> <p><strong>Did you go to Sweden to receive the award?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Yes, yes, and in Sweden it’s an incredible experience. It’s over a week of partly celebration, partly participating in discussions, round tables and formal dinners, but also parties with students. So it’s really an extraordinary event, almost like a fairy tale.</p> <p><strong>What did the award mean to you?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Well, I see the award as carrying with it some responsibility. I see that I have to really motivate young people, to strive to do very good work, and to motivate people in the environmental sciences. They can do very good science there. Furthermore, motivate people in my country of origin, Mexico and also in Latin America, that everything is possible. You can do very good science and achieve the highest levels, doesn’t matter where you come from. So it is a new responsibility that I feel, to try to communicate all these important aspects of being a scientist.</p> <p><strong>Have you gone back to Mexico and given back to your community?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Yes. On my way from Stockholm, before coming to the United States, I spent a few days in Mexico. And just a few weeks ago, I went back once more to Mexico to initiate the scholarship program which is targeted to students from Latin America to do research, particularly in the United States, so that they come and then go back. And it was really initiated partly with some of the Nobel Prize money that I received, but I was very pleased to also see a large increment to be seed money from the Mexican government, as well as from Mexican industry. So they are very eager to help, and to get these sort of programs started, because there are very few scientists in developing countries that can tackle these very large problems that we were talking about before. So I think it’s important to facilitate the formation of even more of them. So these types of programs I see as potentially very important ones.</p> <p><strong>The U.S. and Mexico cooperate on many issues. Mexican astronaut Rodolfo Neri flew aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis on its maiden flight in 1985. Are you pleased with this development, seeing the U.S. and Mexican scientists working closely on global concerns?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Very much so. I think it is very important that we have cooperation, Mexico and the United States. Sharing the border, it’s very important, obviously, for problems at the border. But it’s also important for global problems. It’s important not just with Mexico, in this case, but with the rest of Latin America, to have this cooperation, to begin to think about these very big problems that we have. And again, I see it as a good sign, this interest that the young people have. In fact, I see these environmental issues as a type of issue where young people all around the world are united. It’s something that unifies them, and that they see that it’s going to be very important to take care of the planet, and for that they all have to work together. That’s why I’m an optimist. In spite of the magnitude of these problems we have, there’s some hope that the new generations will try to solve these problems even more vigorously than we have in our own generations.</p> <p><strong>We have just a few more questions for you. What one book would you select to read to your grandchild?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Oh, that’s a difficult question! There are so many books that I would like to think of that I would be hard-pressed to select just one book. Perhaps I would just do what motivated me as a child, to read them some biographies of the great scientists, to try to communicate this enthusiasm of trying to find out new things, trying to find out ways that you can actually do some good things for people around you.</p> <p><strong>What advice would you have for students? What studies should they undertake? What’s the essential foundation for achieving greatness in your profession?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: The advice I would give is, first of all, to find a field that you like. If you are good at mathematics and physics, then you can move in that direction. Physical chemistry, for example. But it’s important to have a very good foundation if you want to do scientific research in one of the basic sciences. But at the same time, the advice that I would give is that — in parallel to that very basic foundation — to also learn about some other aspects of science, and aspects about the way society functions, the humanities and so on. In other words, to tie together a broad liberal education and a solid foundation — in my case, in one of the sciences. I understand that’s a challenge. But it’s important not just to do science and only science. It’s also important not to try to learn about everything, and then not be good at any one particular aspect of knowledge. One has to achieve the right balance between these two goals.</p> <p><strong>Is there any other advice you have for students, general advice?</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: Oh, the general advice is really to try to keep working hard, to care about your communities, care about the world, and care about other people, how everybody lives, and to try to give everybody the opportunity to achieve the higher qualities of life.</p> <p><strong>Thank you very much for taking the time to be with us today.</strong></p> <p>Mario Molina: You are welcome. It’s a pleasure.</p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D. Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>40 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/35-drmolina_lindau_2_julio2012.jpg" data-image-caption="2012: Professor Mario Molina presents "The Science and Policy of Climate Change" during the 62nd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting." data-image-copyright="35-drmolina_lindau_2_julio2012" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/35-drmolina_lindau_2_julio2012-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/35-drmolina_lindau_2_julio2012-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.98684210526316" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WP-2001-molina-img042.jpg" data-image-caption="Mario Molina, 2001 Banquet of the Golden Plate" data-image-copyright="wp-2001-molina-img042" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WP-2001-molina-img042-380x375.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/WP-2001-molina-img042-760x750.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.501976284585" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-20327831corbis.jpg" data-image-caption="October 1995: Mario Molina, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. (Brooks Kraft/Sygma/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="Mario Molina, Winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-20327831corbis-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-20327831corbis-506x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.501976284585" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-20327842corbis.jpg" data-image-caption="October 1995: Mario Molina, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Brooks Kraft/Sygma/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="Mario Molina, Winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-20327842corbis-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-20327842corbis-506x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67763157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-22009026corbis.jpg" data-image-caption="March 26, 2009: Political scientist Jose Woldenberg; scientist and Nobel Prize in Chemistry recipient Mario Molina; historian Enrique Krauze; and president of the Colegio de Mexico, Javier Garciadiego, receive the "Great Cross of Isabel the Catholic" prize during a ceremony held in Mexico City. (Corbis)" data-image-copyright="Four intellectuals get the 'Great cross of Isabel the Catholic' in Mexico" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-22009026corbis-380x258.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-22009026corbis-760x515.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68947368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-24751308.jpg" data-image-caption="March 21, 2010: Jose Mario Molina, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, attends the annual meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) in Cancun, Mexico. (STRINGER/MEXICO/Reuters/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="Molina, winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, attends the annual meeting of the IADB in Cancun" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-24751308-380x262.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/42-24751308-760x524.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2013-domain-winter-mario-molina-001-b.jpg" data-image-caption="2013: Professor Mario Molina" data-image-copyright="2013: Professor Mario Molina." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2013-domain-winter-mario-molina-001-b-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2013-domain-winter-mario-molina-001-b-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2013-domain-winter-mario-molina-001-b1.jpg" data-image-caption="2013: Mario Molina at Centro Mario Molina in Mexico." data-image-copyright="2013: Mario Molina at Centro Mario Molina in Mexico." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2013-domain-winter-mario-molina-001-b1-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/2013-domain-winter-mario-molina-001-b1-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/AP100225154127.jpg" data-image-caption="February 25, 2010: Mexico's Nobel Prize in Chemistry laureate Mario Molina gestures during a conference on global warming in Guadalajara, Mexico. (AP Photo/Carlos Jasso)" data-image-copyright="Mario Molina" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/AP100225154127-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/AP100225154127-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67763157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/complutense5.jpg" data-image-caption="June 2012: Mario Molina is awarded an honorary doctorate from the Complutense University in Madrid, Spain." data-image-copyright="complutense5" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/complutense5-380x257.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/complutense5-760x515.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/curie.jpg" data-image-caption="Marie Curie (1867–1934) was a Polish and naturalized-French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first person and only woman to win twice, the only person to win twice in multiple sciences, and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Panthéon in Paris." data-image-copyright="curie" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/curie-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/curie-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68157894736842" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DrMolina_davos2015.jpg" data-image-caption="January 24, 2015: Mario Molina and Al Gore at the 2015 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum at the Davos Congress Centre." data-image-copyright="An Insight, An Idea with Mario Molina" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DrMolina_davos2015-380x259.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DrMolina_davos2015-760x518.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5109343936382" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DSC_0066.jpg" data-image-caption="April 2014: French President François Hollande presented Mario Molina with the Order of the Legion of Honor, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the French government." data-image-copyright="dsc_0066" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DSC_0066-252x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DSC_0066-503x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.61578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DSC_3838.jpg" data-image-caption="2012: Marco González, Ozone Secretariat, and Mario Molina, Nobel Prize for Chemistry 1995, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Montreal Protocol. The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer (a protocol to the Vienna Convention for the Protection of the Ozone Layer) is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion. It was approved on August 26, 1987 and entered into force on August 26, 1989, followed by a first meeting in Helsinki in May 1989. Since the Montreal Protocol came into effect, the atmospheric concentrations of the most important chlorofluorocarbons and related chlorinated hydrocarbons have either leveled off or decreased." data-image-copyright="dsc_3838" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DSC_3838-380x234.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/DSC_3838-760x468.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/e22a1988_2.jpg" data-image-caption="May 2014: UC San Diego Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Mario Molina receives the UCSD Medal, the highest honor the university bestows and one that has only been presented ten times, mostly to visiting heads of state." data-image-copyright="e22a1988_2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/e22a1988_2-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/e22a1988_2-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3333333333333" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/foto_dr-molina-con-medalla_agi_noc-2013_2.jpg" data-image-caption="November 2013: President Barack Obama awarded Mario Molina the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony." data-image-copyright="foto_dr-molina-con-medalla_agi_noc-2013_2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/foto_dr-molina-con-medalla_agi_noc-2013_2-285x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/foto_dr-molina-con-medalla_agi_noc-2013_2-570x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/honoriscausa_harvard_honorands.jpg" data-image-caption="During the Morning Exercises of the 361st Commencement, on May 24, Harvard conferred honorary degrees on eight distinguished guests — among them two Nobel laureates, an American civil rights pioneer, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer. The 2012 honorary-degree recipients: back row from left: Walter Kohn, John Adams, Provost Alan Garber, President Drew Faust, Fareed Zakaria, Mario Molina, and K. Anthony Appiah. Front row from left: Gillian Beer, John Lewis, and Wendy Kopp." data-image-copyright="honoriscausa_harvard_honorands" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/honoriscausa_harvard_honorands-380x285.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/honoriscausa_harvard_honorands-760x570.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.1728395061728" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Jan_Verkolje_-_Antonie_van_Leeuwenhoek.jpg" data-image-caption="Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek was a Dutch tradesman and scientist. He is commonly known as the "father of microbiology," and considered to be the first microbiologist. He is best known for his work on the improvement of the microscope and for his contributions toward the establishment of microbiology." data-image-copyright="Anthonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), by Jan Verkolje (I)" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Jan_Verkolje_-_Antonie_van_Leeuwenhoek-324x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Jan_Verkolje_-_Antonie_van_Leeuwenhoek-648x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.3793103448276" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Louis_Pasteur_foto_av_Félix_Nadar_Crisco_edit.jpg" data-image-caption="Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and prevention of diseases, and his discoveries have saved countless lives ever since. He reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and created the first vaccines for rabies and anthrax. His medical discoveries provided direct support for the germ theory of disease and its application in clinical medicine. He is best known to the general public for his invention of the technique of treating milk and wine to stop bacterial contamination, a process now called pasteurization. He is regarded as one of the three main founders of bacteriology, together with Ferdinand Cohn and Robert Koch, and is popularly known as the "father of microbiology"." data-image-copyright="Portrait of Louis Pasteur" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Louis_Pasteur_foto_av_Félix_Nadar_Crisco_edit-276x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Louis_Pasteur_foto_av_Félix_Nadar_Crisco_edit-551x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mario_molina_corazon01.jpg" data-image-caption="2016: Professor Molina was awarded the Lionheart medal by the Federation of University Students (FEU) at the University of Guadalajara." data-image-copyright="mario_molina_corazon01" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mario_molina_corazon01-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mario_molina_corazon01-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mario_molina_corazon09.jpg" data-image-caption="2016: Professor Molina was awarded the Lionheart medal by the Federation of University Students (FEU) at the University of Guadalajara." data-image-copyright="mario_molina_corazon09" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mario_molina_corazon09-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mario_molina_corazon09-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Mario-Molina-AMC.jpg" data-image-caption="2014: Mario Molina" data-image-copyright="2014: Mario Molina" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Mario-Molina-AMC-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Mario-Molina-AMC-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4990138067061" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mmolina.jpg" data-image-caption="2012: Dr. Mario Molina currently chairs the Mario Molina Center for Strategic Studies on Energy and Environment." data-image-copyright="mmolina" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mmolina-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/mmolina-507x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MM-y-RP-CMM-011.jpg" data-image-caption="2012: Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri visiting Dr. Molina at CMM. Dr. Pachauri was the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He held the post from 2002 until his resignation in 2015, during which time the organization was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize." data-image-copyright="mm-y-rp-cmm-011" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MM-y-RP-CMM-011-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MM-y-RP-CMM-011-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66973684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA1.jpg" data-image-caption="The 1995 Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden. The 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded jointly to Paul J. Crutzen, Mario J. Molina and F. Sherwood Rowland "for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone." (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" data-image-copyright="molina1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA1-380x255.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA1-760x509.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.70789473684211" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA2.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Mario Molina receives the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry from King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" data-image-copyright="molina2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA2-380x269.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA2-760x538.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65921052631579" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/molina-2.jpg" data-image-caption="Frank Sherwood Rowland, an atmospheric chemist, works in the lab with with his colleague, postdoctoral researcher Mario J. Molina, in January 1975, at the University of California, Irvine. Twenty years later, they shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry — along with Paul J. Crutzen — "for their work in atmospheric chemistry, particularly concerning the formation and decomposition of ozone."" data-image-copyright="F. Sherwood Rowland passes away at 84" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/molina-2-380x251.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/molina-2-760x501.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67763157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA3.jpg" data-image-caption="2000: Mario Molina in his laboratory at MIT. In 1989, he joined the faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He left MIT and returned to California in 2004 to teach at the University of California, San Diego. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" data-image-copyright="molina3" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA3-380x257.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA3-760x515.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68684210526316" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA4.jpg" data-image-caption="1997: Dr. Mario Molina meets U.S. Vice President Albert Gore, Jr. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" data-image-copyright="1997: Dr. Mario Molina meets U.S. Vice-President Albert Gore, Jr." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA4-380x261.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA4-760x522.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.71447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA9.jpg" data-image-caption="A young Mario Molina enjoys a birthday with his family in Mexico City in the early 1950s. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" data-image-copyright="molina9" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA9-380x272.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA9-760x543.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2044374009509" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA11.jpg" data-image-caption="The government of Mexico issued this postage stamp, commemorating the accomplishments of Mario Molina. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" data-image-copyright="molina11" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA11-316x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA11-631x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.67763157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA17.jpg" data-image-caption="President Clinton welcomes Mario Molina to the 1997 White House Roundtable on Global Climate Change." data-image-copyright="molina17" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA17-380x258.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA17-760x515.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.69210526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA19.jpg" data-image-caption="Mario Molina (second from right) joins President Clinton and Vice President Gore at the White House Roundtable on Global Climate Change. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" data-image-copyright="molina19" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA19-380x263.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA19-760x526.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68815789473684" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA20.jpg" data-image-caption="Mario Molina, President Clinton and Vice President Gore meet to discuss climate change at the White House in 1997. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina) " data-image-copyright="molina20" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA20-380x261.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA20-760x523.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.68947368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA25.jpg" data-image-caption="July 24, 1997: Mario Molina presents to President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and eminent scientists at the White House Roundtable on Climate Change. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" data-image-copyright="molina25" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA25-380x262.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA25-760x524.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66973684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA26.jpg" data-image-caption="Actor and environmentalist Lorne Greene presents the John and Alice Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement to Harold S. Johnston, Mario Molina, and Molina's mentor, Sherwood Rowland, in a 1983 ceremony in Los Angeles, California. (Courtesy of Dr. Mario Molina)" data-image-copyright="molina26" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA26-380x255.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/MOLINA26-760x509.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Obama_Medal_of_Freedo_Patr6.jpg" data-image-caption="President Barack Obama awards chemist, and Nobel Prize laureate Mario Molina with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2013, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)" data-image-copyright="Barack Obama, Mario Molina" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Obama_Medal_of_Freedo_Patr6-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Obama_Medal_of_Freedo_Patr6-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/pcast_obama_nov13.jpg" data-image-caption="November 2013: The President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). PCAST is an advisory group of the nation’s leading scientists and engineers who directly advise the President and the Executive Office of the President." data-image-copyright="pcast_obama_nov13" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/pcast_obama_nov13-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/pcast_obama_nov13-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.74078947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Presidencia-1.jpg" data-image-caption="December 2015: Dr. Molina with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto during the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, France. Molina is a climate policy adviser to President Peña Nieto." data-image-copyright="presidencia-1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Presidencia-1-380x281.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Presidencia-1-760x563.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.63703703703704" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/presidenciafrancesa_2.jpg" data-image-caption="April 2014 - French President François Hollande presented Molina with the Order of the Legion of Honor, the highest civilian honor bestowed by the French government." data-image-copyright="presidenciafrancesa_2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/presidenciafrancesa_2-380x242.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/10/presidenciafrancesa_2.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on November 29, 2016</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever science-exploration science-exploration science-exploration small-town-rural-upbringing analytical athletic help-mankind " data-year-inducted="1971" data-achiever-name="Borlaug"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-e-borlaug/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/bor0-001a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/03/bor0-001a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Norman E. 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Carter Brown</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linda-buck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linda Buck, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-burnett/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Burnett</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-h-w-bush/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George H. W. Bush</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/susan-butcher/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Susan Butcher</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-cameron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Cameron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/benjamin-s-carson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Benjamin S. Carson, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-carter/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Carter</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-cash/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Cash</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-j-clinton/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William J. Clinton</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/francis-s-collins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/denton-a-cooley/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Denton A. Cooley, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/francis-ford-coppola/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Francis Ford Coppola</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-dalio/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Dalio</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/olivia-de-havilland/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Olivia de Havilland</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/michael-e-debakey-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael E. DeBakey, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/michael-dell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Michael S. Dell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-dennis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Dennis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joan-didion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joan Didion</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-herbert-donald-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Herbert Donald, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-doubilet/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Doubilet</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rita-dove/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rita Dove</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sylvia-earle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sylvia Earle, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/elbaradei/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mohamed ElBaradei</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/gertrude-elion/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gertrude B. Elion, M.Sc.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-j-ellison/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry J. Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181025071351/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. 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