Susan Solomon is an atmospheric chemist, working for most of her career at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. She was born in 1956 in Chicago. Solomon received a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1977. She received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1981, where she specialized in atmospheric chemistry. In 1999, she received the National  Medal Of Science.  Her research has also helped institute a global ban on the chemicals that destroy atmospheric ozone and, consequently, threaten human health worldwide. In 2011, Solomon joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she serves as the Ellen Swallow Richards Professor of Atmospheric Chemistry & Climate Science. Solomon was the head of the Chemistry and Climate Processes Group of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Chemical Sciences Division until 2011. In 2011, she joined the faculty of the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.