Luis A. Campos is a historian of science whose scholarship brings together archival discoveries with contemporary fieldwork at the intersection of biology and society.
He has written widely on the history of genetics, synthetic biology, and astrobiology and is the author of Radium and the Secret of Life (University of Chicago Press, 2015), and co-editor of Making Mutations: Objects, Practices, Contexts (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2010) and Nature Remade: Engineering Life, Envisioning Worlds (University of Chicago Press, 2021). He is also a regular contributor to Science magazine on topics related to the history of recombinant DNA ("A Little Care Before We Leap," "DNA and Deli Sandwiches", "Invoking Asilomar" and "Recombining Representation").
In early 2025, Campos organized a major international summit on "The Spirit of Asilomar and the Future of Biotechnology," held at the original location of the 1975 Asilomar meeting on recombinant DNA, to chart new paths forward for a global conversation on the future of biotechnology. The event involved a dozen US federal agencies and an equal number from around the world, participants from more than 80 universities (half American and half from overseas) as well as participants from a hundred other research institutes, foundations, organizations, and corporations. The event integrated the humanities and arts with social and natural sciences; see "Invoking Asilomar" in Science magazine, and “A Scientific Reckoning Returns” for further details.
Campos is a visionary convenor of gatherings relating the history of science to the governance of new technologies, in diverse formats ranging from expert consultations to public events. In 2026, fifty years after the contentious Cambridge City Hall hearings on recombinant DNA of 1976, Campos envisioned a staged theatrical re-creation of the debates in the play “No Recombination Without Representation,” which was developed in collaboration with the MIT Museum, Central Square Theater, and Plays in Place. The play was performed in conjunction with a symposium he organized at the MIT Museum on “Existential Risk, Emerging Technology, and Democracy.”
Previous gatherings include "Engineering Life: Legacies of Asilomar" (Houston, 2023) and "Engineering Life: Regulating Science, Society, and Risks in Europe" (Paris, 2023), and the Scientia Institute’s biennial DeLange conference, "Brave New Worlds: Research, Risk, and Responsibility," exploring futures of synthetic biology, AI, and environmental engineering. He also co-organized a workshop on the "History of Recombinant DNA" in collaboration with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Prof. Campos received his AB in biology and PhD in the history of science from Harvard University in 1999 and 2006, and his MA in the history and philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge in 2000. He has taught at Drew University and at the University of New Mexico, where he was Regents’ Lecturer and Associate Professor of the History of Science. In 2016 Campos was appointed the Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/Library of Congress Chair of Astrobiology at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and in 2021 he delivered the distinguished George Sarton Memorial Lecture in the History and Philosophy of Science for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Campos is a former associate editor of the Journal of the History of Biology, and program chair for the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology. He also served for six years as Secretary of the History of Science Society, "the world’s largest society dedicated to understanding science, technology, medicine, and their interactions with society in their historical context."
He has been Scholar-in-Residence at Ginkgo Bioworks (Boston) and as a Visiting Scholar at Columbia University, the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), the Institute for Advanced Studies (UWA, Perth), Fondation Brocher (Geneva), Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart), and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (Berlin). During the fall 2026 he is resident in and teaching at Venice International University.
Prof. Campos teaches courses in the history of science, atomic history, environmental history, queer history, space history and the history of biology.