About
Dr. Ariane Helou is Scientific Writing Specialist at Caltech's Beckman Institute, where she supports the advancement of cutting-edge research while expanding her longstanding interest in biological sciences. She is a multidisciplinary humanities scholar whose graduate and postdoctoral research focused on drama, music, and poetry in early modern Italy, England, and France. Dr. Helou was a faculty member at UCLA in the department of French & Francophone Studies, and at UC Santa Cruz (where she also earned her PhD in Literature) in Theater Arts, Classical Studies, and French.
Since joining Caltech, Dr. Helou has undertaken new teaching and research directions in history and philosophy of science, building on her foundational interdisciplinary training in literature, philosophy, and history and influenced by her current work supporting life sciences research. She has developed a course in Bioethics, which she teaches once per year for the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Dr. Helou has held fellowships from the Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies; the Huntington Library; and UCLA's William Andrews Clark Memorial Library & Center for 17th- and 18th-Century Studies, among others. She has published award-winning original scholarship on Italian Renaissance drama and musical performance, Shakespeare studies, and other topics. She is the co-editor, with Julia R. Lupton, of Romeo and Juliet, Adaptation and the Arts: "Cut Him Out in Little Stars" published by The Arden Shakespeare (2022). Dr. Helou is also a co-author on a forthcoming article in PNAS (2025) in collaboration with the Goentoro lab at Caltech.
She is also a translator; a dramaturg; and a performing artist whose background spans early music, theater, and opera. Dr. Helou was on the dramaturgy staff at the Santa Cruz Shakespeare festival 2012-2020 and 2023, and is a member (Dramaturg/Producer) of the Los Angeles-based theater company Collaborative Artists Bloc. She is also an Affiliated Scholar of LA Opera Connects.