About Barry Commoner
Barry Commoner was an American cellular biologist, college professor, and politician. He was a leading ecologist and among the founders of the modern environmental movement. He was the director of the Center for Biology of Natural Systems and its Critical Genetics Project. He ran as the Citizens Party candidate in the 1980 U.S. presidential election. His work studying the radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing led to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1963. The following month, the first Earth Day took place, which saw 20 million Americans demonstrating peacefully in favor of environmental reform, accompanied by several events held at university campuses across the US. During this period, in 1966, he founded the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems to study "the science of the total environment".
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.