Michelle Francl is the Frank B. Mallory Professor of Chemistry at Bryn Mawr College and an Adjunct Scholar of the Vatican Observatory. She is a quantum chemist who has worked in areas ranging from the development of methods for computational chemistry to the structures of topologically intriguing molecules. Her essays on science, culture and policy have appeared in Nature Chemistry and Slate as well as in a number of essay collections. She was elected a Fellow of the American Chemical Society in 2009 and is the 2019 recipient of the ACS Philadelphia Section Award. She gives occasional workshops on writing for scientists.