Stephen Warren was born in Wisconsin and grew up in Indiana. He completed a bachelor has degree in chemistry at Cornell University in 1967 and a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Harvard in 1973. He then worked four years in biophysics, solving atomic structures of proteins using Xray crystallography. In 1978 he changed careers to atmospheric physics, working two years at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and two years at the University of Colorado, specializing in solar and infrared radiation. In 1982 he joined the glaciology group at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he is now Associate Professor of Geophysics and Atmospheric Sciences. His research interests are the role of snow and clouds in climate. For the year of 1992, he was the Station Science Leader at the South Pole Station.