Women Acting Up: Susan Solomon
April 3, 2009 by Jessica Warnock
Filed under Women Acting Up
When Susan Solomon received her Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley in 1981, there was no “going green” trend. In 1981, there was no “An Inconvenient Truth.” In 1981, climate change and global warming weren’t hot election topics.
Since 1981, in all of the years of her astonishing career, Susan Solomon has helped to change that.
Susan Solomon is an internationally recognized scientist in the field of atmospheric science and considered one of the most important voices in the debate about climate change. She works as a senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder. She was also a co-chair of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This group released the famous 2007 report that began to help people understand thereality of global warming. The panel shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007.
Now Solomon is receiving another great honor. She is one of 10 inductees to the 2009 National Women’s Hall of Fame. Christine Moulton, the hall’s executive director, describes the group of women as “a reflection of the very best of America.” This hall has honored some of the greatest and most important women in history.
“It’s hard to imagine I’m in there too now so I keep thinking they mean some other Susan Solomon,” she says. “It’s a thrill from top to bottom.”
In 2000, Solomon won the National Medal of Science, the nation’s highest honor awarded to a scientist. In 2008, she was awarded the Great Medal of the Academy of Sciences of France. She has also had a glacier named after her for her work in Antarctica where she led an expedition that proved chlorofluorocarbons were causing the ozone “hole” that opened there.
“Science is the greatest thing in the world, with the power to move mountains through facts,” Solomon says. “It’s mostly hard work, and it’s all worth it.”
The 2009 National Women’s Hall of Fame inductees will be celebrated in Seneca Falls, NY, on Oct. 10 and 11. For a complete list inductees visit www.greatwomen.org.
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