Jack Fishman joined the faculty of Saint Louis University in 2011 where he is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and was also appointed the Director of the Center for Environmental Sciences that same year.

Prior to coming to SLU, he worked at the NASA Langley Research Center for 31 years, where his research focused on the area of tropospheric chemistry for more than three decades. In the early part of his career, he worked under the tutelage of Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen where he developed photochemical models of the atmosphere. The results from these models led to the hypothesis that anthropogenic emissions significantly impacted the global tropospheric ozone budget, a premise that was later confirmed through analyses of in situ trace gas measurements. Since the mid-1980s, Dr. Fishman has pioneered the use of satellite observations to provide a unique and eye-opening perspective of the extent of global pollution.  In 1992, he was the Mission Scientist for a multi-national NASA-led aircraft field campaign, TRACE-A (Transport and Atmospheric Chemistry near the Equator-Atlantic) that confirmed and provided an explanation for his satellite findings of extensive pollution from biomass burning in southern Africa and South America that circumnavigated the southern hemisphere.  Thirteen countries, seven aircraft and more than 300 scientists and support personnel participated in this 2-month field campaign. 

He has authored or co-authored more than 100 citable works in the peer-reviewed literature and has given numerous presentations at national and international conferences, many of which have been invited.  He has been a member of two NASA satellite science teams (TOMS, Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer; and OMI, Ozone Mapping Instrument) and he was one of the leaders of the Science Working Group for the GEO-CAPE (Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events) mission, NASA’s next planned atmospheric chemistry mission, which is anticipated to be launched within this decade.  Dr. Fishman has also been a strong advocate of educating children, teachers, and the general public by developing learning materials for the GLOBE (Global Learning through Observations to Benefit the Environment) Program and by writing award-winning books for general audiences.  For his research, he has successfully proposed as a Principal Investigator and has been supported by NASA, the U.S. EPA, and NSF.