Caltech Magazine

28/07/2026

For more than 100 years, Caltech’s Earnest C. Watson Lecture Series has brought the wonder and excitement of groundbreaking research to the public through free live events designed to spark conversation and connection. Here's what we learned this past year.

by Sabrina Pirzada For more than 100 years, Caltech’s Earnest C. Watson Lecture Series has brought the wonder and excitement of groundbreaking research to the public through free live events designed to spark conversation and connection. The 2025–26 season drew thousands of guests to Beckman Au

23/07/2026

The story of two Caltech scientists, separated in time by 70 years.

In 2025, as the Eaton Fire swept through his Altadena neighborhood, Caltech geochemist François Tissot redirected the tools of planetary science toward a more earthbound problem: How much toxic lead was released into our environment as homes that were built before lead bans burned? In so doing, he echoed the work of a different era of Caltech science.

In the 1950s, Caltech geochemist Clair C. Patterson set out to determine the age of the Earth using isotopic variations of lead as his main tool. Answering questions about the distant past requires evidence that records the passage of time. In geochemistry, that evidence comes in the form of changes in isotope ratios—the relative abundances of subtle variants of a chemical element—which can be measured with extraordinary precision to reveal a sample's age and origin.

Read their full story: https://magazine.caltech.edu/post/the-element-that-knew-too-much

19/07/2026

“I believe that Pasadena is, in fact, the center of the universe.”

Families and astronomy buffs enjoyed interacting with scientists from a stunning array of astronomy and space organizations in and near Pasadena, including from Caltech’s campus, JPL, and IPAC. By Ann Motrunich The marshmallows roasted without a campfire. Instead, the children gathered outside

17/07/2026

“I’m originally from Puerto Rico, and I’m very used to a small tight-knit community back home. If you don’t know someone, you probably have someone that you know in common. That’s very similar to Caltech, which is so small you can build strong relationships—not just within your department, but everywhere. I had a chance to meet incredible people through the Caltech Basketball Club, the Graduate Summer Research Institute, and as a WAVE mentor. Yeah, you get to know people on a deeper level.

“I will miss the PhD life a lot, especially having the ownership of a project and trying to push the boundaries of science and engineering. At Caltech, you have so much opportunity and so many resources to explore the topic that you’re most interested in. This type of community—with professors and mentors who are so creative and smart–really helps you produce high-quality science, and that’s something that I will really miss too.”

José Lasalde-Ramirez plans to graduate in June 2027 with a doctorate in medical engineering. He was recognized with the 2024 EAS New Horizons Award for his contributions to community and belonging at Caltech, including his service as a WAVE Council member, his active role in WAVE Fellows recruitment, and his efforts to secure funding for high school students and a STEM teacher from Puerto Rico to attend the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science conference in 2022.

10/07/2026

Let's meet more of our grads! Shrishti Pankaj Kulkarni graduated in June with a bachelor’s in physics and a minor in computer science. The course that she taught, “Fundamentals of Experimental Quantum Computing,” was part of a pilot seminar of courses, which will later be codified into Ph 13: Student-instructed courses in Physics. As a member of Venerable House, Shristi has also served as internal vice president of the Caltech Y and performs Kathak, a classical Indian dance form, with Caltech Aarya, the classical South Asian dance club on campus. After graduating, she will begin a PhD program at UC Berkeley, continuing her research in atomic physics and quantum computing.

“In my first year, I was able to take a student-led computer science class, which was my first introduction to the world of quantum computing. When I became a senior, I realized that I wanted to teach my own class, because I am fascinated by pedagogy and have taken a few courses about the topic to learn more about the advancements and effective techniques in the field. But I realized there was no structure to teach a class as a student within my option, physics. Because of Caltech’s small size, and the physics option’s small size, I knew the head of the option and the executive officer of physics from taking their classes, so I was able to email them and say, ‘Hey, I really want to do this. How can we make it happen?’

“We worked together over the past year to basically establish student-led courses in physics, and they were super supportive. This term, I was able to teach a class with my friend, Mark Gherghetta [fourth-year undergraduate], and that’s been super amazing. The course bridges a gap between learning quantum mechanics and getting into quantum computing research, especially on the experimental side, on campus. Mark and I work in labs that focus on experimental quantum computing, so we wanted to show the reality of that work and establish some fundamentals for students who want to do this kind of research.”

07/07/2026

Meet more of our graduates! Donny Lu is a fourth-year undergraduate from Macau, China, graduating in June with a BS in physics and a minor in aerospace engineering. Originally a politics major, he switched to physics before transferring to Caltech in 2024 as part of a 3-2 program with Pomona College. Lu has served as president of the Caltech Robotics Team for the past year and helped to build a fully autonomous motorized couch, combat robots, and a humanoid robot, among other projects. After graduation, he plans to continue working for the start-up he founded, Dlab Sciences, which develops 3D-printed materials for manufacturing.

“Helping to run the Caltech Robotics Team has given me so much experience. One day, I was walking around campus with my friend, and we went down to the Guggenheim basement and saw a big logo that said, ‘Caltech Robotics Team.’ We didn’t even know a robotics team existed on campus. I had a chance to chat with the previous president, and she said they had trouble recruiting people after COVID. I became determined to bring it back. The next day, I went to the lab, and it was a mess. It hadn’t been touched in years, so I cleaned up everything and literally organized every single drawer. Then I began the effort of building the team again, and we started with battle bots. We got a lot of people interested, and now we’re doing different competitions in the area, especially through Southern California Attack Robotics.

“I also got the chance to attend the International Conference on Robotics and Automation, where I met other undergrads from Columbia, Rutgers, and UC Berkeley. We wanted to build some projects no one has built before, so we decided to build a robotic local motion platform using classical control algorithms that professor Aaron Ames has studied a lot. Professor Joel Burdick, our team advisor, has also given us so many resources for all our different projects, and we have the ability to reach out to alums, who are literally the best in the industry, who have been helping us push through. I don’t really think you can get that anywhere else in the world.”

06/07/2026

“It's not like a problem set where there’s an answer key. I feel the main benefit of this class is learning how to be an engineer who has to do your own research and figure things out by yourself. Dr. Klesh nudges us in the right direction. He’s not telling us what to do. I think out of all of my professors, he’s certainly someone who very often says, ‘I’m not going to tell you the answer, but I’ll give you some suggestions.’”

by Andrew Moseman For years, Andy Klesh’s students have gone through a dress rehearsal for what it takes to design and then send a project to space. His  course, Practical Electronics for Space Applications, is taught every two years and has typically used balloons to loft student payload

01/07/2026

Today, Ray Jayawardhana, a renowned astrophysicist, award-winning communicator, and transformative academic leader who has held senior roles at two of the country’s preeminent research universities, became Caltech’s 10th president. Caltech magazine had the chance to speak with him about his aspirations for the Institute and what drew him to this role.

"The word ‘unique' gets overused, but Caltech truly is a singular place with a close-knit community whose commitment to excellence is relentless,” Jayawardhana said. "That ethos runs deep and wide, and it imbues everything we do. […] I intend to be a fierce advocate for the Institute’s mission, for the people who advance it, and for the case that fundamental discovery and applied innovation are not in tension, that they reinforce each other. The opportunity to be part of this community, and to steward and champion it, is the honor of a lifetime.”

In our interview, Jayawardhana also reflected on how he’s thinking about his presidential priorities in the first year, the best advice he’s ever received, and what drew him to astronomy and space.

Read the rest of our conversation here: https://magazine.caltech.edu/post/president-ray-jayawardhana

30/06/2026

Let's meet more of our grads! Elizabeth Won is a 2026 graduate who double-majored in applied and computational math and English. An avid swimmer, she was a member of the Caltech swim team for four years. Won plans to attend Harvard Law School in the fall.

“My background is in applied math, but my dream was always to go to law school. I did a SURF [Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships program] project after my junior year under Professor Jennifer Jahner to expose myself to some legal research. Using case studies of ongoing disputes, we identified how AI in the legal system is currently treated as one of two things: something with agency or something that we use as a tool. These are both metaphors used to wrap our heads around AI because we don’t currently have strict legislation on how to use and how to govern AI. By nature, innovative technology consistently predates specific legal codification, leading law to turn to past precedents. However, because there is a lack of precise conceptual language, precedents become a type of metaphor. We explored different ways that science fiction literature looked at AI to see how these metaphors can lead to implications in our understanding and treatment of AI. Science fiction works like Frankenstein and short stories by Ted Chiang and Philip K. Dick allowed us to see abstract debates and discussions surrounding AI systems in a more concrete form. This brought together our study of the English language and the case studies, as it helped make sense of why specific governing bodies would look at AI the way they did through the language used. It also lent ways to talk about the consequences of looking at AI a certain way and how to take responsibility when something goes wrong in an automated system, which is everywhere in the news right now.

“Even though everyone at Caltech is focused on STEM, there was actually a great deal of diversity in people that I met. When I work on any type of problem, especially in law school and beyond, it’s very interdisciplinary. Carrying with me all different nuggets of perspective from my peers will be very beneficial going forward.”

28/06/2026

"I've been at Caltech for more than three decades, and what's kept me here through every role is the people; you walk across campus and you know almost everyone. Making connections is what led to my small part in setting up the Green Labs ReStore. In my experience, every time a professor retires, downsizes, or moves, a whole lab's worth of unused supplies and equipment could end up in the trash or sitting idly in an empty lab space: gloves, pipette tips, reagents, sometimes freezers and shakers.

“When [Green Labs coordinator] Tasha Cammidge and the Green Labs team wanted a physical space to inventory and rehome these things, she approached me about the recently vacated stock room in Alles. I was able to work with her and our division staff to prepare the room and begin channeling donations to her group. Everything in the ReStore is offered up to other labs for free. It's saved the campus tens of thousands of dollars already, but, honestly, the part I love most is that it's one more place where this community takes care of itself, and I get to be a small part of that."

Joan Sullivan is the division operations officer for the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering at Caltech. She has been on the Institute’s professional staff for 35 years, for which she was honored at the 2026 Service Impact Awards. Her career has spanned jobs in Finance, in the then Office of Public Relations, in the former Development and Institute Relations, in EAS’s department administration, and most recently in BBE. She served as BBE’s operations manager for nine years before being appointed division operations officer in 2024.