CIVIC SCIENTIST LECTURE — “THE POTENTIAL IMPACTS OF DIRECTING EVOLUTION”

In this keynote address, Frances Arnold will examine the various implications her Nobel Prize-winning work has created across scientific, technological and social boundaries.

Biography
Frances Arnold is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology. She was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 2018 for pioneering directed enzyme evolution and has used directed protein evolution for applications in alternative energy, chemicals and medicine. In 2021, Arnold was appointed co-chair of Biden’s President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Other awards include the Charles Stark Draper Prize of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (2011), the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2011), and the Millennium Technology Prize (2016). She has been elected to the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Medicine and Engineering and was appointed to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2019. Arnold co-founded three companies in sustainable chemistry and renewable energy (Gevo, Provivi and Aralez Bio) and serves on the boards of several public and private companies. She earned a B.S. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.