Roger Revelle was a scientist and scholar who was instrumental in the formative years of the University of California, San Diego and was one of the first scientists to study global warming and the movement of Earth's tectonic plates. UC San Diego's first college is named Revelle College in his honor. In 1991, he was awarded the National Medal of Science by President George H.W. Bush. He was born on March 7, 1909 in Seattle, Washington, United States.

He graduating from Pomona College in 1929 with early studies in geology and then earning a Ph.D. in oceanography from the University of California, Berkeley in 1936. While at Cal, he studied under Dr. George D. Louderback and was initiated into Theta Tau Professional Engineering Fraternity which started as a mining engineering fraternity and maintained a strong affinity for geology and geological engineering students. Much of his early work in oceanography took place at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) in San Diego. He was also Oceanographer for the Navy during WWII. He became director of SIO from 1950 to         1964. He stood against the UC faculty being required to take an anti-communist oath during the Joseph McCarthy period. He served as Science Advisor to Interior Secretary Stewart Udall during the Kennedy Administration in the early 1960s, and was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1974). He died on  July 15, 1991 in San Diego, California, United States.