Frances Arnold: ‘To expect a Nobel prize is rather silly’
by Zoë Corbyn from on (#418WS)
The joint winner of this year's Nobel prize in chemistry talks about her pioneering work on enzymes and the realities of sexism in the sciences
This month, Frances Arnold, professor of chemical engineering at Caltech in California, was awarded the 2018 Nobel prize in chemistry, shared with two others. She's the fifth female chemistry laureate since the prizes first began in 1901, and the only ever American woman to win in the subject.
Where were you when you got the news you had won the Nobel prize?
I was in deep sleep in a Dallas hotel room having arrived at midnight to give a lecture the next day. The phone rang at 4am. I was worried that it was some emergency at home. Then I saw that the telephone number was from Europe and I thought maybe I had better answer it.