Frances Arnold, Ph.D.

Arnold is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology. She received the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the 2016 Millennium Technology Prize for pioneering directed enzyme evolution methods, which she has used to create enzymes for applications in alternative energy, chemicals and medicine. Arnold co-founded Gevo, Inc. to make transportation fuels from renewable resources and Provivi, Inc. to develop non-toxic modes of agricultural pest control.

She is a Trustee of the Gordon Research Conferences and chairs the Advisory Panel for the Packard Fellowships in Science and Engineering. Since January 2021, she has served as an external co-chair of President Biden’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

Arnold received her B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University and her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.