faculty

The portraits below highlight a few of the women faculty at Caltech.

Frances H. Arnold is the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry at Caltech.  She earned her B.S. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University in 1979 and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of California, Berkeley in 1985. Professor Arnold’s work focuses on applying state-of-the-art methods to address central issues in protein design and the evolution of new biocatalysts, metabolic pathways, genetic regulatory circuits and synthetic ecosystems. In 2000, Dr. Arnold was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and most recently was given the Carothers Award of the ACS Delaware Division. For more information about Dr. Arnold’s research, please visit: Frances H. Arnold

Marianne Bronner-Fraser received her Sc.B. in Biophysics from Brown University and her Ph.D. in Biophysics from Johns Hopkins University in 1979.  She joined the faculty at Brown University in 1979.  She joined the faculty at University of California, Irvine, in 1980 and became a Full Professor in 1990 as well as co-director of the Developmental Biology Center.  In 1996, she moved to the Division of Biology at Caltech where she is currently the Albert Billings Ruddock Professor of Biology.  From 2001-2003, she was the first woman to serve as Chair of the Faculty at Caltech.  Her research centers on the early formation of the nervous system in vertebrate embryos.  She and Scott Fraser (also a Professor at Caltech) were married in 1979 and their two children, Paige (16) and Ryan (12) keep them busy every hour they are not in the lab. For more information about Dr. Bronner-Fraser’s research, please visit: Marianne Bronner-Fraser

Jean Ensminger is Division Chair for the Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor of Anthropology at Caltech. She is a past President of the Society for Economic Anthropology and a current member of the Mac Arthur Foundation’s Preferences Research Network. Professor Ensminger is known for her work applying the theory of New Institutional Economics to Africa, especially in her Cambridge University Press book, Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society.  Professor Ensminger has also studied property rights, transaction costs, principal-agent relations, and examined the relationship between economic incentives and a whole range of social and economic behaviors, including conversion to Islam.   For more information about Dr. Ensminger’s research, please visit: Jean Ensminger

Sossina M. Haile is Associate Professor of Materials Science and of Chemical Engineering at Caltech. She earned her Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992. As part of her doctoral studies, Haile spent a year as a Fulbright Fellow at the Max Plank Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany. She then held a postdoctoral appointment at this same institution as a Humboldt Fellow. Before assuming her present position at Caltech in 1996, Haile was a member of the faculty at the University of Washington. Her research broadly encompasses solid-state ionic materials and devices, with particular focus on fuel cells. In 1992 she was awarded a National Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation. Her other major awards include the 1997 Robert L. Hardy Award of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society (TMS), the 2000 Robert L. Coble Award of the American Ceramic Society and the 2001 J. Bruce Wagner, Jr. Young Investigator Award of the Electrochemical Society. For more information about Dr. Haile’s research, please visit: Sossina M. Haile

Linda Hsieh-Wilson is the daughter of two physicians who emigrated from Taiwan.  She was born in the Bronx and grew up in nearby Westchester County.  Linda attended Yale University, where she received a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and was a violinist in the Yale Symphony for four years.  At Yale, Linda was pursuing both chemistry and architecture – ultimately, it was an all-night episode with a structurally unsound, foam-core model that convinced Linda that chemistry was her calling.  In 1990, she moved to the University of California, Berkeley and obtained a Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry in the laboratory of Professor Peter G. Schultz.  Linda returned to New York City in 1996 to study molecular neurobiology with Professor and Nobel Laureate Paul Greengard at the Rockefeller University, where she gained a unique perspective on the field of biological chemistry.  In 2000, Linda joined the chemistry faculty at Caltech.  Her laboratory integrates chemistry and neurobiology to study small molecules and proteins involved in neuronal cell communication.  For more information about Dr. Hsieh-Wilson’s research, please visit: Linda Hsieh-Wilson

Catherine Jurca is not a scientist.  Instead she gets to read novels and watch films and write about them for a living.  She can't imagine a better job, unless it's doing this work while also serving as Master of Student Houses.  As MOSH she gets to show undergraduates the classical Hollywood films she most loves and to encourage students to take pleasure in a world outside of science.  For more information about Dr. Jurca’s research, please visit: Catherine Jurca

Anneila Sargent is a Professor of Astronomy at Caltech, Director of Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory, and Director of the Caltech/JPL Michelson Interferometry Science Center. A native of Scotland, she received her B.Sc. with honors in Physics from the University of Edinburgh (1964), and her Ph.D. in Astronomy from the Caltech (1977).  Her research has concentrated largely on understanding how stars form in our own and other galaxies.  Most recently she has been investigating the way in which other planetary systems are created and evolve. With her collaborators and post-doctoral scholars she uses the Owens Valley millimeter-wave array, the Keck telescopes, and data from NASA Space Science Missions, to search for and study potential planetary systems from their earliest stages of formation, when dense cores in interstellar clouds collapse to form stars, to the epochs when individual planets may be born.  In 1988, Dr. Sargent was named Caltech’s “Woman of the Year" and was awarded the NASA Public Service Medal. For more information about Dr. Sargent’s research, please visit: Anneila Sargent

Erin Schuman is interested in how the brain stores information at the connections between neurons known as synapses. She did her undergraduate work in Psychology at USC and her graduate work in Neuroscience at Princeton.  She did postdoctoral work at Stanford and joined the Caltech faculty as an Assistant Professor in 1993.   At the time this photo was taken she was an Associate Professor and Executive Officer of Biology and an Associate Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  Erin chose a career in science because she loves doing experiments and is fascinated by neurons and synapses.  She took part in the photo series because she has always admired the photographer and is enthusiastic to promote women in science and at Caltech. Erin is a mother to two girls, Charlotte Marguerite (4) and Camille Erin (8 months) as well as a step-mom to Emma (8- not shown here).  Erin always tells her lab that having kids is the most rewarding thing she has ever done.  For more information about Dr. Schuman’s research, please visit: Erin Schuman

Nai-Chang Yeh is a professor of physics at Caltech. Her research field is experimental condensed matter physics, particularly in the areas of strongly correlated electronic systems such as superconductors and magnetic materials, superconducting devices, precise measurements of fundamental physical quantities of quantum gases and fluids, development of state-of-the-art frequency standards for studies of gravitational physics, nano-scale instrumentation development and nano-system characterization. Professor Yeh received her B.Sc. degree from the National Taiwan University in 1983, her Ph.D. degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988, and joined the Caltech faculty in 1989. Her professional honors include: Distinguished Alumni Lectureship of the Physics Department in the National Taiwan University in 2003; Elected Fellow and Chartered Physicist of the Institute of Physics in UK since February of 2001; and Outstanding Young Researcher Award by the Overseas Chinese Physics Association in 1998.  For more information about Dr. Yeh’s research, please visit: Nai-Chang Yeh