Ohio Wesleyan, 1948
Sherwood Rowland was an Honorary Inductee to the CoSIDA Academic All-America® Hall of Fame in 2000.
Nobel Prize winner F. Sherwood Rowland is as renowned for his work in chemistry as his basketball and baseball success at Ohio Wesleyan University.
A native of Delaware, Ohio, Rowland was an excellent student and athlete. He graduated from Delaware High School at 16 and enrolled at Ohio Wesleyan. After two years at college he enlisted in the Navy and spent a year in basic training. WWII ended before Rowland was sent overseas and he returned to his academics and basketball career at Ohio Wesleyan. He graduated in 1948 and then went on to the University of Chicago to obtain his masters degree and Ph.D. in chemistry. Due to old NCAA rules that allowed graduate students to compete in intercollegiate athletics Rowland was able to continue his basketball and baseball careers while pursuing his advanced studies.
Rowland was a professor of chemistry at both Princeton University and the University of Kansas before taking a position at the University of California, Irvine in 1964. His research in radiochemistry has earned him much recognition throughout his career. Rowland was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1978 and served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1993. He won the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement in 1983 and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995. He shared the Nobel Prize with fellow researchers Mario Molina of MIT and Paul Crutzen of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany.
Rowland passed away March 10, 2012, Corona del Mar, Newport Beach, Calif.