The Grainger College of Engineering

Ralph J. Cicerone

Ralph J. Cicerone
Ralph J. Cicerone
To Ralph J. Cicerone for his leadership in higher education and in recoginition of his pioneering in studies in atmospheric chemistry and their application to global warming.

Cancellor and Daniel G. Aldrich Professor of Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, California

  • BS, 1965, Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • MS, 1967, Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • PhD, 1970, Electrical Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Ralph Cicerone is one of the most respected atmospheric scientists in the United States and one of the world's leading experts on the greenhouse effect. In 1985, he and three colleagues released novel research showing that CFCs, methane, and other trace gases may someday equal or surpass carbon dioxide as the main greenhouse gas. Cicerone left the National Center for Atmospheric Research in 1989 to become the founding chairman of the geosciences department at the University of California, Irvine. This department has one of the few programs in the nation devoted to studying global environmental threats and the dynamics of air, earth, and sea. He was named the Daniel G. Aldrich Professor of Earth System Science in 1989, Dean of Physical Science at UCI in 1994, and Chancellor in 1998.

In 1997, he received the prestigious United Nations Enviroment Program Ozone Award for research in protecting the Earth's fragile ozone layer. His research was also recognized on the citation for the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry awarded to UIC colleague F. Sherwood Rowland. He was selected by the Franklin Institute as the 1999 laureate for the Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science. Cicerone is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for Advancement of Science. He has served as president of the American Geophysical Union, and the received its James B. Macelwane Award in 1979 for outstanding contributions to geophysics. Currently, he serves on the Council of the National Academy of Sciences and is a fellow of the California Council on Science and Technology. He received the ECE Distinguished Alumus Award in 1992.

Current as of 2000.