Frances H. Arnold, the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology, has received the 2019 Bower Award for Achievement in Science.
The award is among the most prestigious Franklin Institute Awards, which have honored exceptional innovators in science and technology since 1824. Dr. Arnold was honored for “pioneering the development of directed protein evolution,” a monumental step forward in the science of protein engineering that revolutionized the use of biological catalysts for research and industry.
Dr. Arnold has taught at CalTech since 1986 and also serves as the director of the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center. In 2011, she became the first woman to win the Charles Stark Draper Prize from the National Academy of Engineering. Additionally, she was the first woman to be elected to all three branches of the National Academies: the National Academy of Engineering (2000), the National Academy of Medicine (2004), and the National Academy of Sciences (2008). In 2018, her breakthroughs in enzyme design earned her the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Professor Arnold holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.