Molina was innate around Mexico City, son of Roberto Molina Pasquel, an attorney, & Leonor Henriquez diamond state Molina.

Molinthe earned a bachelor's degree inside chemical engineering at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico in 1965, a graduate degree from either a University of Freiburg, West Germany in 1967 and a doctorial degree inside physical chemistry from UC Berkeley, California in 1972. Within 1974, as a postdoctoral researcher at UC Irvine, he coauthored a paper that detailed their locate on the threat of CFCs on the ozonosphere in the stratosphere. At a instance, CFCs in which widely utilized when chemical propellants and refrigerants. This locate played a real role is the worldwide elimination of CFCs from either aerosol & icebox, & these are for this function that he late shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Inside July 1973, Molina married Luisa Tan, who he met when working within Berkeley.

Between 1974 and 2004 he variously held the food & drug administration and teaching posts at UC Irvine, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, and a Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech, and at a Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In July 1, 2004 Molina joins the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at UCSD and a Center for Atmospheric Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

Molina occurs as member of the Pontifical Academy of Science, the National Academy of Sciences, and a Institute of Medicine. He serves in the boards of many environmental organizations, & too sits on the total of scientific committees including the U.S. President's Committee of Advisors in Science and Technology.

Inside 2002 Molina received an Honoris Causa Degree from a Universidad de las Américas, Puebla, in Cholula,Puebla, Mexico.