Frances Arnold

Frances Arnold is a scientist, engineer, professor, entrepreneur, executive and researcher. She studied Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University and a PhD in Chemical Engineering at the University of California. She is a world reference for her scientific discoveries in chemistry.

She is a professor and Linus Pauling Professor at the California Institute of Technology and is a director at Illumina, a biotechnology company. She is also co-founder of several companies, most notably Gevo Inc, a company that researches how to make fuels and chemicals from renewable resources. In addition, she is on the corporate board of the genomics company Illumina Inc and Alphabet Inc included her as a board member. She is a pioneering researcher in the directed evolution of proteins and enzymes.

Her multiple accolades include winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2018), the Charles Stark Draper Prize from the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Obama, and the Millennium Technology Award (2016), among others. She is also a co-creator of multiple U.S. patents.