University Dedicates Building to Nobelist

UC Irvine will honor atmospheric chemist F. Sherwood Rowland by renaming its physical sciences building Rowland Hall at 3:30 p.m. today.

A bronze bust of Rowland, whose groundbreaking work on ozone depletion earned a Nobel Prize, will be unveiled at the ceremony and then placed in the building’s hall.

Also, from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. today, Rowland will join six prominent scientists, including his Nobel Prize-winning partner Mario J. Molina, in a symposium about earth and atmospheric topics at the Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, next to UC Irvine.

Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone spoke highly of Rowland.

“Sherry Rowland’s research has made a very large impact on the world,” Cicerone said. “His scientific ideas and data have caused chemical companies, governments and individual people all around the world to change their behaviors and work together.

“A cooperative, worldwide effort was needed to succeed in replacing the chlorofluorocarbon chemicals that were damaging the ozone layer, and Sherry Rowland’s pioneering research, his personal integrity and his speaking skills enabled people everywhere to mount this large effort. And, in the process, millions of people worldwide first heard of UC Irvine.”

UC Irvine also will welcome Nobel Peace Prize co-recipient Ken Rutherford, founder of Landmine Survivors Network, to campus today for a lecture, titled “Banning Land Mines.”

Rutherford lost both legs to a land mine while working as a credit union training officer in Somalia on Dec. 16, 1993. He helped found the Landmine Survivors Network to educate the international community about the mass suffering caused by land mines, and what can be done to help victims and communities affected by their use.

The free lecture will be at noon in Social Science Lecture Hall 100.