Soon, a new cone-shaped spacecraft will launch into space on a mission to chart the skies like never before. Called SPHEREx (for Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer), the NASA mission will provide a unique all-sky 3D map of hundreds of millions of galaxies in our universe. Among […]

The Shirley M. Malcom Prize for Excellence in Mentoring, founded in 2021, has been awarded this year to Michael A. Vicic, teaching professor in chemical engineering.The annual prize is named for Shirley Malcom, a senior trustee at Caltech, and honors a professor "who, through mentoring, supports the achievement and well-being of students. Criteria include, but […]

Each year, a Caltech faculty member is selected to receive the Richard P. Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching for demonstrating "in the broadest sense, unusual talent, creativity and innovation in undergraduate or graduate classroom or laboratory teaching." Recipients, chosen by a committee appointed by the provost, are nominated by faculty, students, postdoctoral scholars, staff, […]

Ken Lee, a seasoned investment manager and respected leader in the financial sector, will join Caltech on April 15, 2025, as the Institute's new chief investment officer (CIO).As a member of the Institute's senior administrative leadership group, Lee will oversee the Institute's investment strategies and manage its approximately $4.5 billion investment portfolio. He will work […]

When an earthquake happens in the Southern California region, all eyes turn toward Caltech's Seismological Laboratory, or Seismo Lab for short.For over 100 years, the Seismo Lab has pioneered geology and geophysics research, and provided information on earthquakes to the general public—where they occur, how strong they are, and what the likelihood is for aftershocks, […]

Three Caltech faculty members have been selected to receive Sloan Research Fellowships in 2025: Scott Cushing, assistant professor of chemistry; Ryan Hadt, assistant professor of chemistry; and Kareem El-Badry, assistant professor of astronomy.The fellowships, awarded annually since 1955, "honor exceptional researchers at US and Canadian educational institutions, whose creativity, innovation, and research accomplishments make them […]

Trevor Nolan's favorite plant is one that glows in the dark. Though Arabidopsis thaliana is not naturally fluorescent, in the lab, it is an extensively researched model organism that can be genetically modified to label its cells with fluorescent proteins under various conditions, enabling precise imaging. This allows developmental biologists like Nolan to answer fundamental […]

A game of chess requires its players to think several moves ahead, a skill that computer programs have mastered over the years. Back in 1996, an IBM supercomputer famously beat the then world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Later, in 2017, an artificial intelligence (AI) program developed by Google DeepMind, called AlphaZero, triumphed over the best […]

Zhen-Gang Wang, Caltech's Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering and executive officer for chemical engineering, has been elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). The 2025 class, which includes 128 new members and 22 international members, was announced on February 11.According to the NAE's press release, Wang was elected to […]

In 2019, Caltech researchers demonstrated a new method to use light to control active matter—a kind of material made up of individual energy-consuming pieces that act as a whole to create mechanical motion. The process works similarly to how many individual birds form a swarm that seems to move as a whole. In the research, […]