Frances Arnold
“Frances has been at Caltech forever”
Celebrating 35 Years of Directed Evolution
View Full ProgramJuly 19–20, 2026 • Caltech Campus, Pasadena
“Frances has been at Caltech forever”
Party in Dabney Hall
Casual celebration with food, drinks, and lab stories. SOs are welcome!
Symposium & Dinner Reception
Convenient options near the Caltech campus
Popular mid-century motel on Route 66, about 0.8 miles from campus (easy walk or short ride). Features a large outdoor pool and garden courtyard.
1633 E Colorado Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91106
Rooms have been blocked specifically for the Arnold Lab Reunion.
+1 626 395 8200
Please mention “Arnold Lab Reunion” when booking.
Caltech Campus, Pasadena, California
Dabney Hall (Building 40)
Primary venue for the Sunday party, Monday happy hour, and dinner reception.
Gates Annex, Room B122
Scientific talks on Monday, July 20.
Tip: On the map, search for “Dabney Hall” or Building 40, and “Gates Annex” for the symposium venue (Room B122).
Dabney Hall with Garden of Associates (Building 40) and Gates Annex (Room B122)
Tip: The official campus map highlights all parking areas.
Gates Annex B122 & Dabney Hall, Caltech Campus
9:00 am
Meet & Greet + Coffee & Pastries
Dabney Hall – Pick up lanyards and reconnect
9:30 – 11:30 am
Scientific Talks
Click to expand → speaker lineup
Gates Annex B122
11:30 am – 2:00 pm
Lunch Break & Mingling
Taco Truck with fresh tacos and quesadillas • Lab tours available upon request
2:00 – 4:00 pm
Scientific Talks
Click to expand → speaker lineup
Gates Annex B122
4:00 – 5:00 pm
Happy Hour
Dabney Hall • Lab tours available upon request
5:00 pm
Dinner Reception
Dabney Hall – Evening celebration with speakers and community
Arnold Lab members past and present presenting at the reunion
Senior Principal Scientist, Merck & Co., Inc.
Jeffrey Moore is a Senior Principal Scientist at Merck & Co., Inc. and the founder and scientific lead of the company's Biocatalysis research group, which develops enzymes and processes for pharmaceutical manufacturing. His work has earned numerous honors, including two U.S. Presidential Green Chemistry Awards, a Thomas Edison Inventorship Award, the International BIOCAT Award, the Enzyme Engineering Award, and the group is recognized worldwide for its contributions to the field. Moore holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Caltech, where he was Frances Arnold's first Directed Evolution graduate student, and a BS in Biochemical Engineering from North Carolina State University. He has published more than 40 papers, holds 30 patents, and has helped manage the Enzyme Engineering Conference series since 2003.
Steven L. Miller Chair, UIUC
Dr. Huimin Zhao is the Steven L. Miller Chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), director of NSF AI Institute for Molecule Synthesis, NSF iBioFoundry, and NSF Global Center for Biofoundry Applications, and Editor in Chief of ACS Synthetic Biology. He received his B.S. in Biology from USTC and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Caltech in 1998. He has authored over 480 research articles and given over 550 invited lectures. Forty of his former students and postdocs have become professors worldwide. His research focuses on synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and laboratory automation for health, energy, and sustainability.
Managing Director, Banc of California
Chris Otey is Managing Director at Banc of California on the life science teams where he is responsible for business development and venture lending. Prior to Banc of California, Chris led R&D and Corporate Development at Oerth Bio and Commercial Strategy and Operations at Indigo Ag. Chris was a Senior Vice President at Alexandria Real Estate where he led venture investing, business development and other strategic initiatives on the east coast — leading over 100 investments in Biopharma, AgTech, and FoodTech companies and helping launch Alexandria's early-stage incubator, ARE Launch Labs. He also worked at MIT in the Technology Licensing Office. Chris earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from Caltech, an MBA from the University of Massachusetts, and a B.S. in Biochemistry from UCSB.
Co-founder & CBO, Provivi
Pedro Coelho, Ph.D. co-founded Provivi in 2013 together with Dr. Peter Meinhold and Prof. Frances Arnold (Nobel Laureate 2018). Provivi creates scalable, pheromone-based insect control solutions that protect crops and biodiversity while reducing farmers’ dependency on insecticides. Pedro served as CEO from 2013 to 2024 and now serves as Chief Business Officer, focusing on partnerships and growth. The company is now commercial in the US, Mexico, Europe, Indonesia, and Brazil.
Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins University
Xiongyi grew up in Guilin – a small and quiet city in China known for its karst landscape. He received his B.S. Degree in Chemistry in 2010 from University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). He completed his Ph.D. in 2016 with Prof. John T. Groves at Princeton University. Xiongyi then joined the Arnold Lab at Caltech as an NIH NRSA and Pathway to Independence Postdoctoral Fellow, where he developed new-to-nature enzymatic transformations including the first enzymatic carbon–boron bond formation. He began as an Assistant Professor at Johns Hopkins University in September 2019. His research focuses on engineering metalloenzymes for new synthetic reactions. Awards include the Packard Fellowship, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, and Sloan Fellowship.
Co-founder & CEO, Aralez Bio
Tina Boville is the co-founder and CEO of Aralez Bio, a startup that designs and manufactures noncanonical amino acids for a bio-based future. After earning her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Chicago, Boville co-invented Aralez Bio's foundational technology while conducting postdoctoral research at Caltech in the lab of Nobel Laureate Prof. Frances Arnold. Recognized as an MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35, Activate Fellow, and Biotech Founder to Watch.
Senior Scientist, Merck Discovery Biologics
Kadina Johnston received her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Caltech in 2024, supported by an Amazon AI4Science Fellowship and the Caltech Biotechnology Leadership Program. During her time in the Arnold Lab, Kadina built methods to enable predictive, data-driven enzyme engineering strategies and mapped a 160,000-member epistatic landscape of an enzyme active site. Kadina joined Merck Discovery Biologics as a Senior Scientist in 2023. She currently works in their Protein Engineering group in South San Francisco and focuses on ML-based protein engineering and structure-based drug design.
FutureHouse Postdoctoral Fellow, Caltech
Chenghao is a FutureHouse postdoctoral fellow at Caltech supervised by Prof. Frances Arnold. He is working on the computational design and evolution of enzymes that perform new-to-nature chemistries. He completed his Ph.D. at McGill University supervised by Prof. Dmytro Perepichka, and he concurrently studied at Mila with Prof. Yoshua Bengio. He was also a co-founder of the protein design startup Dreamfold.
Memories from the Arnold Lab over the years
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