Susan Solomon

As a high school student, Susan Solomon undertook a project to measure oxygen levels in various gaseous mixes. 

That study would net her third place in a national science fair. It would also foreshadow the work that earned her the reputation as one of the most impactful climate scientists of the modern era. 

More than a decade after that high school science project, Solomon led an expedition to McMurdo Station in Antarctica, where she and her team observed that levels of chlorine oxide in the atmosphere were far higher than they anticipated. 

What emerged from that expedition was the first direct evidence of what was causing a hole in the Antarctic ozone layer.

That work eventually earned her the National Medal of Science in chemistry in 1999. It helped set off a global scramble to protect the ozone layer, laying the groundwork for the Montreal Protocol, which reduced production of compounds like chlorofluorocarbons and hydrofluorocarbons.

Solomon currently serves as the Lee and Geraldine Martin professor of environmental studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where her work focuses on atmospheric chemistry and climate change.

— Max Greenwood