Frances Arnold

Frances Arnold (born 1956) is the first U.S. woman to win a Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Growing up, Arnold was a rebel. She was a Vietnam War protester who rented her own apartment in her teens. She supported herself by working in jazz clubs and pizza parlors and driving a taxi. She also loved to read. She earned a doctorate in chemical engineering and became a professor at Caltech.
Arnold pioneered “directed evolution,” a method to produce new enzymes—the proteins that drive chemical reactions. She essentially recreates the process of evolution in a test tube and speeds it up. Her enzymes can be used to make renewable fuels or treat chemical spills.