Scott E. Fraser

Who is Scott E. Fraser?

Scott E. Fraser is an American biologist. From 1991 until 2012 he was the Anna L. Rosen Professor of Biology and Professor of Engineering and Applied Science at the California Institute of Technology, where he served as director of the Biological Imaging Center and the founding director of the Rosen Center for Biological Engineering. In September 2012 he moved to the University of Southern California, where he is a Provost Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Biological Science as well as the Director of Science Initiatives. He brought a team of several dozen associates with him from CalTech and is focusing on building interdisciplinary cooperation.

He is known for his development of imaging techniques for the study of cellular morphogenesis.

Fraser began his scientific career studying physics and biophysics. After Johns Hopkins, he took a faculty post at the University of California, Irvine, in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics where he served as chairman. In 1991, Fraser moved to Caltech to become the Anna L. Rosen Professor of Biology and build the Biological Imaging Center in Beckman Institute. In the Biological Imaging Center, he and his colleague Russ Jacobs assembled an interdisciplinary team to design and construct a new generation of light and MRI microscopes. He worked with colleagues to establish the Kavli Nanoscience Institute at Caltech as well as the Caltech Brain Imaging Center, which he directed for five years. He has served as an advisor to several different biotech start up companies and national facilities, and has co-founded companies such as Clinical Micro Sensors.