Emma Frow is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Program on Science, Technology, & Society (STS) at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. Her current research focuses on standards development and community-building efforts in the emerging field of synthetic biology. While at Harvard, Emma is working on a National Science Foundation project with Sheila Jasanoff and colleagues called “Life in the Gray Zone: Governance of New Biology in Europe and the United States.”

Emma’s research interests center around processes of standardization and valuation across engineering and the life sciences; sustainability in the bio-based economy; and objectivity and representation in scientific practice. Since 2009 she has been conducting ethnographic work relating to the negotiation of engineering principles and standardization practices in the emerging field of synthetic biology. Emma also helps to coordinate a UK-wide research network in synthetic biology funded by the UK Research Councils (the Synthetic Biology Standards Network), and is a member of the EU-US Task Force on Biotechnology’s Working Group on Synthetic Biology.

Emma is a bioscientist by training. She holds a BA in Natural Sciences (Neuroscience) and a PhD in biochemistry, both from the University of Cambridge. Her doctoral research focused on mechanisms of white blood cell migration (chemotaxis) in chronic inflammatory disorders. Emma worked for the scientific journal Nature before moving to the ESRC Genomics Forum at the University of Edinburgh in 2006. She completed an MSc in Science & Technology Studies at Edinburgh in 2009, and has recently been appointed to a Lectureship in the department of Science, Technology and Innovation Studies.