When asked what makes his alma mater special, Roger Davisson (BS ’65, MS ’66) frames his thoughts with a literary allusion. “Walt Whitman wrote, ‘I contain multitudes,’” he says. “Well, Caltech contains multitudes. The Institute has some of the brightest and best minds, and they gather across disciplines in a way that I don’t think happens elsewhere. For a small school, the amount of stuff that’s going on is truly remarkable.”
Researchers looking for a way to bridge the “valley of death” can compete for RI2 funding.
Visiting Caltech in fall 2017, trustees Lynn Booth and Kent Kresa had a chance to stop by the newly opened Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST). This interdisciplinary hub advances research on autonomous systems and robots with potential benefits ranging from improving disaster rescue and response to providing mobility for people with disabilities to expanding our ability to explore land, water, and outer space. The promise of innovation on display so fired the couple’s imagination that they decided to endow the Booth-Kresa Leadership Chair for CAST.
“The beaver may be our official mascot, but to many outside our community, Techers are considered unicorns,” says Robert Eng, a scholarship recipient and member of Caltech’s Class of 2018.
Dale Burger (BS ’53) knows from experience how much a wide range of knowledge matters, and this knowledge has fueled a lifelong passion for helping others learn to learn.
Since its public launch in April 2016, Break Through: The Caltech Campaign has broken Institute fundraising records. While Break Through looks to secure Caltech’s future as a source of discovery for the world, the campaign already is making an imprint on campus and beyond by supporting Caltech people who are pursuing big questions and bold ideas.
Twenty-seven current students and 11 recent alumni have been selected to receive funding for graduate studies.
Entrepreneur and philanthropist Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe, have pledged $5 million through The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation to endow a professorial chair at Caltech named in honor of David Baltimore, Nobel laureate, Caltech president emeritus, and Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biology.
