Emma Frow

Biography

Emma joined Arizona State University in 2015 and holds a joint appointment in the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering, and the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes. Her research focuses on standards and governance in contemporary life sciences, with a particular focus on synthetic biology. She is currently working with colleagues in the UK on a project called ‘Engineering Life’ (funded by the European Research Council), exploring the movement of ideas, promises and practices from engineering into the life sciences. Emma is broadly interested in how biologists and engineers come to know the world and how they operate in it, and how the disciplines of biology and engineering are being challenged and reconfigured alongside the development of new technologies and practices.

Emma received her BA in Natural Sciences (Neuroscience) and her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, UK. She spent two years working as a subeditor for Nature in London, and then re-trained in the social sciences, gaining an MSc in Science & Technology Studies from the University of Edinburgh. She completed postdoctoral research at the ESRC Genomics Policy & Research Forum at the University of Edinburgh and at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and was an Assistant Professor in Science, Technology & Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh before moving to ASU.