Freedom to Explore
Caltech alumnus and telecommunications pioneer Ronald Willens and his wife, JoAnne, support early-career faculty working across traditional boundaries.
Campaign Priorities
Break Through: The Caltech Campaign will ensure the ability to explore and innovate for Caltech, its researchers, and the students who represent the future. For more information, read the stories below or use the drop-down menu to explore campaign priority areas.
Alvarez Professorships Promote the Power of Great Teaching at Caltech
When Richard Alvarez (BS ’57) worked at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, he helped a team fire an electron beam down 10,000 feet of three-quarter-inch tube to probe elementary particle physics. He was one of the people in the lab, he recalls, who understood the whole machine.
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Faculty Support
Mathematician in Motion
For as long as he can remember, David Ignacio Fager has adored mathematics. In high school, he lived for Mu Alpha Theta competitions and skipped ahead in math textbooks the way impatient readers sometimes peek at the last page of a mystery novel.
Start with the Explosions
Most days, Caltech physics professor Rana Adhikari shoots lasers at mirrors, crystals, and film-coated glasses to see how photons of light interact with them.
The Math of Human + Machine
Maegan Tucker moves people. As a first-year graduate student in mechanical engineering at Caltech, she developed an accessory for walking canes that vibrates to alert users when they may be in danger of falling. She researches ankle exoskeletons that could help people with ambulatory impairments walk farther with less effort, and full-body suits that could return mobility to those who have lost it.
On Different Wavelengths
Whether it is wavelengths, perspectives, or strategies, Caltech planetary scientist Katherine de Kleer prefers to settle on more than just one.
What Makes Up a Mind
Imagine if you were paralyzed and unable to communicate. Your loved ones and doctors would have no way of knowing whether you felt at peace or were suffering. Currently, brain scans could not tell us how you feel. Ralph Adolphs (PhD ’93) would like to change that.
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Human Health;
Neuroscience
Industry Standard-Bearer
Chevron executive Barbara Burger backs Caltech women in chemistry.
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Graduate Fellowships