Susan Solomon, one of the world’s leading experts on climate change, will deliver the 2009 Ireland Distinguished Visiting Scholar Lecture Wednesday, April 8 at 5:30 p.m. in the Alys Stephens Center.
Solomon’s talk is titled “A World of Change: Climate Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.” The lecture is free and open to the public. Call 996-7190 for more details.

Solomon was among the first scientists to discover the Antarctic ozone hole. She also was co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that conducted an international study on climate change. For their work, the IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore Jr. jointly received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007. Time magazine named her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008.

Solomon earned her doctorate in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1981 and later joined the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as a research scientist.

In 1986 and 1987 she was the head project scientist of the National Ozone Expedition at McMurdo Station in Antarctica and made some of the first measurements there that pointed toward chlorofluorocarbons as the cause of the ozone hole. An Antarctic glacier was named in her honor in 1994 in recognition of that work. In 2000, Solomon received the National Medal of Science, the United States’ highest scientific honor for “key insights in explaining the cause of the Antarctic ozone hole.”