Samuel Garrison, a leader in government relations and civic engagement, has been appointed as Caltech's external relations officer effective January 2, 2018.

In this new role, Garrison will represent Caltech with federal, state, regional, and local government officials and agencies. He will collaborate closely with the Institute's leadership to develop and implement strategies that address policy and operational issues with political and legislative implications for Caltech. He will also work with government and community stakeholders, and with Lewis-Burke Associates, a Washington-based government relations firm, to best represent both campus and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which is managed by Caltech on behalf of NASA.

Garrison comes to Caltech from Caruso, one of the nation's most respected real estate and hospitality companies, where he most recently served as vice president of corporate affairs and executive director of the Caruso Family Foundation. He has led multiple government relations, corporate communications, philanthropic, and civic-related projects on behalf of founder and CEO Rick Caruso. Prior to joining Caruso in 2012, Garrison was a director of High Lantern Group, a strategic positioning consulting firm, and vice president for public policy and government relations at the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce. Garrison began his career working on Capitol Hill as an assistant to Senator Dianne Feinstein and senior legislative aide to Congressman Adam Schiff.

"Sam has both the right skillset and background to serve as Caltech's first external relations officer," says Diana Jergovic, the Institute's vice president for strategy implementation. "His extensive experience in government affairs combined with his strong commitment to civic engagement and robust ties to the local and regional community make him the ideal choice to lead Caltech's efforts in establishing stronger ties with all our external constituents."

"Caltech is a global leader in advancing knowledge and innovation. This is an exciting opportunity to represent the Institute and support the important work of the students, faculty, and researchers," says Garrison.

Active in civic life, Garrison is the board chair of Operation Progress, a youth success initiative in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, and is a longtime board member of Hillsides, a Pasadena-based family services provider. He is also a board member of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. He holds a law degree from Loyola Law School and is a member of the State Bar of California.

Garrison succeeds Hall Daily, who served as the Institute's primary government relations point person for three decades. Daily managed Caltech's relationship with key governmental offices and agencies, community groups, and higher-education associations, and served as a key liaison between Caltech and its adjoining neighbors.

Kevin Austin, longtime director of Caltech's health and counseling services, died on November 4, 2017. He was 64.

Austin, who retired from Caltech in December 2015 after more than 25 years of service as a therapist and administrator, worked with countless students, faculty members, and student affairs professionals during his tenure at Caltech.

Jennifer Howes, executive director of health and counseling services, says Austin's contributions to the Caltech community "can be seen in the way he increased the visibility and utilization of counseling services, and in the valuable relationships he built across campus."

She adds that some of Austin's most important work was often hard to measure, paying off in "silent successes," and citing his efforts around suicide prevention.

Caltech named Austin an honorary alumnus in 2006 for his efforts to support the campus community and for developing programs spanning a range of issues, including procrastination and substance abuse.

A memorial will be held on December 6 at 3 p.m. in Dabney Hall. Details can be found here.

Joel (J. N.) Franklin, who taught mathematics at Caltech for nearly a half century, passed away on November 18 at the age of 87.

Franklin was born on April 4, 1930, in Chicago to a pair of doctors, J. Nick and Anne Esau. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was 8 years old and, when he turned 16, he changed his last name from Esau to Franklin out of admiration for the intellectual spirit of Benjamin Franklin. That year, he enrolled at Stanford University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1950 and a PhD in 1953. His adviser, Dutch mathematician Johannes Gaultherus van der Corput, had been one of the founders and the first director of the Mathematisch Centrum, a mathematical and theoretical computer science research center in Amsterdam. Franklin later did postdoctoral work at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU.

After graduate school, Franklin moved to Altadena and, in 1957, began his teaching at Caltech as an associate professor of applied mechanics. He worked closely with Gilbert McCann, professor of applied science, who was one of the early champions of computing at Caltech (and inventor of an analog computer in 1946). Franklin served as a professor of applied science from 1965 to '69, and then as a professor of applied mathematics starting in 1969. He was known for his work on numerical methods, linear and nonlinear computer programming, and problems involving randomness. 

"Joel excelled as a scholar and researcher," says former colleague Dan Meiron, Fletcher Jones Professor of Aeronautics and Applied and Computational Mathematics in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science. "He had a very deep understanding of linear algebra, optimization theory, as well as regularization theory for ill-posed problems. I recall that if any of us in applied math—and the Institute in general—had any questions about matrix theory, linear programming, etc., we could consult with Joel, and he always pointed us to the relevant results often connected to work he had done in the past. He was also a superb teacher. It was routinely the case that we had to find bigger lecture halls to accommodate the large number of students wishing to take his classes."

Franklin became professor emeritus in 2000. He was the author of a textbook on methods of mathematical economics in 1980, and one on matrix theory in 2000, and was the recipient of Associated Students of the California Institute of Technology (ASCIT) Teaching Awards for the 1977-78 and 1979-80 academic years. In his personal life, Franklin was an accomplished classical pianist. He is survived by his daughter, Holland (Sarah) Franklin, and his grandchildren Benjamin and Kim Seeley.

For the third consecutive year, Caltech will host the Southern California State Science Olympiad Tournament, a K–12 science and engineering competition that exposes students across the nation to hands-on experience in scientific fields.

The statewide event will be held on campus on April 7, 2018. More than 1,000 participants are expected, and the competition will be coordinated by approximately 100 Caltech student and faculty volunteers.

Science Olympiad, one of the country's premier science competitions, has been fostering student interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields since the 1980s. Each year, tens of thousands of elementary, middle, and high school students participate in regional meets, with the winners in the latter two groups advancing to the state and national levels. Tournaments consist of multiple events that involve laboratory investigation, hands-on engineering, and/or a written test on subjects including biology, physics, chemistry, engineering, computer science, and Earth science.

The winning two teams from the event hosted by Caltech—one from middle school and one from high school—will compete at the 2018 National Tournament hosted at Colorado State University May 18–19, 2018.

Miriam Sun, a Caltech sophomore biology major and member of the Science Olympiad planning team, says Caltech has helped produce the event for more than a decade, allowing the Institute to play a key role in creating a powerful tool for STEM outreach to local students.

In fact, Sun adds, based on reports from students more than 20 percent of current Caltech undergrads say they participated in the Olympiad when they were in grade school. "For many of us," she says, "it first sparked our interest in STEM fields and helped us gain experience in various subjects we wanted to pursue further."

Michael R. Hoffmann, Theodore Y. Wu Professor of Environmental Science, has been elected to the Chinese Academy of Engineering (CAE). Professor Hoffman was one of 18 foreign experts, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who were inducted into the CAE which is the foremost engineering academy in China.

Read the announcement here.

Tucked away on the third floor of the Center for Student Services on Holliston Avenue, an office with five full-time employees has quietly transformed the ways Caltech teaches its students and future scientists.

Created in 2012, the Center for Teaching, Learning, & Outreach (CTLO) was launched with ambitious goals: to improve the quality of teaching on campus, bolster instructional opportunities for students, and engage K–12 schools in educational outreach. At the time, Caltech lacked a center specifically devoted to those ends.

Joseph Shepherd, vice president for student affairs, notes that five years later, though still small, CTLO has amassed a portfolio of several dozen programs that have had an outsized impact on education on campus and established itself "as an integral part of the Institute."

Cindy Weinstein, vice provost of education, notes that "the inaugural team impact award was awarded to the CTLO because it has worked effectively with faculty, students, and postdocs to enhance teaching and learning at Caltech."

The office has played a key role in improving the undergraduate core curriculum by updating teaching methods and seeking regular feedback from faculty and students about the approaches that worked best. The office also brings core and other faculty members together to discuss ways to improve the students' experience.

Several programs focus on training for faculty members and teaching assistants—including the annual fall Teaching Conference, TeachWeek, and the Faculty Summer Short Course. Other programs offer seminars and workshops featuring speakers, such as Caltech Feynman Teaching Prize winners and other guest speakers, to help teachers become more effective.

Timothy Liu, a senior in electrical engineering who was the student government's Academics and Research Committee chair for the 2016–17 academic year, says CTLO "has played a critical role in supporting and improving classroom instruction. Programs like TA training and cross-departmental discussions organized by CTLO have helped improve the classroom experience for students. Undergraduates can definitely see some of these newer ideas in teaching appear in the lecture hall and classroom."

More than 85 percent of the Institute's new and established faculty have participated in at least one the office's programs, says Cassandra Horii, who is a scientist by training and has served as director of CTLO since its inception in 2012. Horii adds that almost half of all faculty now participate in programs annually, showing "Caltech's depth of commitment to discussing meaningful questions about how students learn, something we're doing along with a lot of other universities in light of emerging research on effective teaching."

Xie Chen, associate professor of theoretical physics, is one of them. In January 2016, she sought help from CTLO to improve her Physics 129 b class.

"I was pretty new, and, after teaching the class once, I wanted to get my students more motivated and interested—I didn't want them to fall asleep," she jokes.

CTLO's assistant director for instructional practice & technology, Jennifer Weaver, sat in on a class and talked with Chen extensively on which active learning techniques would work for incorporation into her classroom. For example, they decided that Chen would break up her lecture by engaging students with thoughtful questions, allowing them time to consider, confer and respond.

Chen credits the experience with boosting her confidence and improving her students' interest and attendance—and also, in part, for her receiving a graduate student teaching award for her winter 2016–17 course.

"When I started, I was never systematically trained as a teacher. But CTLO helped me at a time when I really needed it," she adds.

CTLO's reach also extends into the community, where its programs cast students in the roles of teachers as part of educational outreach efforts that engaged about 17,500 local K–12 students and teachers last year. These popular programs include Visiting Scientists, which features graduate students and postdoctoral scholars who volunteer in local schools to conduct hands-on science lessons, and Science Night, in which Caltech undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars conduct science demonstrations for students and parents at local schools.

As part of the Visiting Scientists program, Cecilia Sanders, a second-year graduate student in geological and planetary sciences, recently coached a second-grade class at Pasadena Unified School District's Cleveland Elementary School through a hands-on exercise using color-coded paper representing genes to teach how snippets of DNA can determine an animal's color, size, and shape.

Sanders says she gained at least as much from the classroom experience as the children did. "I think it actually makes me a better scientist and thinker," she says. "You don't really understand something until you can explain it to a 6-year-old and get them to retain it."

In addition to in-person outreach, CTLO supports digital community outreach as well through massive open online courses (MOOCs) taught by Caltech faculty that have engaged more than 740,000 people all over the world.

Antonio Rangel, the Bing Professor of Neuroscience, Behavioral Biology, and Economics, says CTLO has had a significant impact on his teaching and research, and has been instrumental in creating and gradually improving his Ec 11 course, which has been using a flipped classroom model for the last four years and is also offered as an online course for non-Caltech students.

Working with the office, he says, gave him insights into "how to teach effectively on different media and led me to completely change the way I teach inside Caltech and online."

On-campus enrollment in Rangel's course has increased by about 80 percent, he says, and objective measures of learning, such as final test scores, have increased by about 20 percent.

Mitch Aiken, associate director for educational outreach, says CTLO's focus on outreach supports researchers' efforts to demonstrate the potential societal benefits of their work. Locally, CTLO programs offer assistance ranging from training high school students and teachers in rigorous research and data collection techniques to helping create and staff the 3-D Printing and Fracture Mechanics course for Muir High School's Engineering & Environmental Science Academy students. Caltech's Community Science Academy programs and the National Science Foundation-funded Pulsar Search Collaboratory have also prompted local students to seek careers in science—as well as an education at Caltech.

In the new year, CTLO will welcome a visit by Physics Nobel Prize winner Carl Wieman in February, who will speak about STEM education research. In April, Shirley Malcom, Caltech trustee and director of education and human resources programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, will speak at TeachWeek about national changes in science education.

Horii says that, going forward, CTLO aims to deepen its collaboration with academic divisions and work to create more discipline-specific resources and programs: "We're really excited about partnerships that meet faculty and TAs where they are, and we're always looking for new ways to empower Caltech's community of educators."

Caltech men's water polo head coach Jon Bonafede has been named Division III National Coach of the Year by the Association of Collegiate Water Polo Coaches (ACWPC).

The award recognizes coaches who demonstrate exemplary leadership and the ability to help aid in their teams' growth and improvement. Bonafede, who was honored in December, is the 12th coach to receive the award since its inception in 1997 and is one of five current Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) coaches to have been so recognized.

Bonafede says the award "speaks to the patience, resilience, and good decision making my coaching staff and I exhibited this season. I am so proud of my team for their hard work, dedication, and sacrifice. It is an honor to represent Caltech and the amazing scholar-athletes
who compete and study here."

Under Bonafede, the men's water polo team won eight games in the 2017 season—one of the team's best seasons in recent history. Caltech earned its first SCIAC victory since 2001 over Occidental College last September, then went on to sweep Oxy, first with a victory at the Gary Troyer Tournament, then with another victory in Eagle Rock. The Beavers also increased their margin of victory with each Oxy win, which Bonafede says showcases the team's growth over the course of the season.

The ACWPC exists to promote the development and advancement of collegiate water polo and acts as the sport's national ranking system. All awards and recognitions are selected based on nominations and voting by the head coaches of all Division III water polo programs.

The honor marks Bonafede's second coaching award of the season. In November, the third-year coach received recognition from the SCIAC with the SCIAC Men's Water Polo Coach of the Year.

Following an overnight power outage affecting the campus south of California Boulevard, Institute officials report that electricity has been restored to several buildings, but that IPAC and the athletics facilities may not have power permanently restored for several days.

Bill Taylor, senior director of facilities management, says the cause of the outage is underground and has not been definitively located.

"It's a significant problem, but limited to a small area," he says, adding that repairs could take the rest of the week.

The outage began at 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday morning. Power to the Child Care Center, Young Health Center, and the California Parking Structure was restored later in the morning, Taylor says, but Brown Gym, Braun Athletic Center, the pool, and IPAC's data center remained affected as of Wednesday afternoon. Emergency generators have been deployed and connected to provide temporary power to Braun and IPAC.

Caltech's pool is closed until further notice, as are most of the athletics department's other classes and activities. Wednesday night's intercollegiate women's basketball game, however, will be played on schedule. For the latest on when activities will resume, check the department's Twitter feeds at @CaltechRec and @CaltechBeavers.

Caltech is mourning the loss of Joseph Polchinski (BS '75), the Pat and Joe Yzurdiaga Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus, at UC Santa Barbara. Polchinski was perhaps best known for his discovery of D-branes in string theory. String theory is the leading " theory of everything," which holds that the structure of the universe, at the most fundamental level, is made up of strings. D-branes, as Polchinski deduced, are structures that anchor or trap the strings. In 2017, with two other physicists, he won the prestigious Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics"for transformative advances in quantum field theory, string theory, and quantum gravity."

"Joe was amazingly talented as a physicist, and incredibly generous as a friend and colleague," says Sean Carroll, a research professor of physics at Caltech. "His approach of thinking carefully about the deepest questions will continue to inspire everyone who knew him."

Polchinski was born in White Plains, New York, on May 16, 1954. At Caltech, he was mentored by the late Tom Tombello, Caltech's former Robert H. Goddard Professor of Physics.

"Joe often reminisced about how his Caltech experiences laid the foundation for his later life and career," says John Preskill, Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics. "His friends were not surprised by the opening sentence of his delightful recent memoir: 'Whenever I am asked where I am from, I always want to answer "Caltech."'" That memoir, Memories of a Theoretical Physicist, was made available in 2017.

Polchinski earned his PhD in physics from UC Berkeley in 1980, after which he worked at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) and at Harvard. In 1984, he joined the faculty at the University of Texas, Austin, and in 1992, he joined UC Santa Barbara as a professor of physics, becoming a professor emeritus in 2017. He was also a long-time member of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at UC Santa Barbara.

Early in his career, Polchinski helped to turn "renormalization," an important tool in quantum theory, into a more mathematically coherent theory. In addition to his work in string theory, he also helped develop an idea about black holes and "firewalls"—blizzards of high-energy particles. He proposed that a person falling into a black hole would not experience free falling, as Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity suggests, but would be torn apart by a high-energy-particle firewall. The discrepancy between the two proposals, according to physicists, may signal a crack in modern physics.

Polchinski was a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2008, he won the Dirac Medal of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, and, in 2013 and 2014, he won Physics Frontier Prizes. Polchinski was also the author of a two-volume textbook, String Theory.

"Joe's discovery of D-branes has enabled string theory to address some of the most fundamental questions in physics such as the Hawking's information paradox, which asks whether general relativity is right in predicting that a black hole destroys information or if quantum mechanics is right in requiring that the information should be preserved in some way," says Hirosi Ooguri, the Fred Kavli Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics and director of Caltech's Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics. "It has also led to surprising applications of string theory to problems in condensed matter physics and other areas of physics. His discovery has had enormous impacts and has changed the course of theoretical physics over the past two decades."  

Matt Strassler, a professor of theoretical physics at Rutgers University, who worked with Polchinski on D-branes, wrote a blog post about his colleague, saying, "It was breathtaking to witness the speed with which Joe worked, the breadth and the depth of his mathematical talent, and his unmatched understanding of these branes."

Polchinski is survived by his wife, Dorothy Chun, a professor of education at UC Santa Barbara; their two sons, Steven and Daniel; and his sister, Cindy Reid.

John Lewis, a U.S. congressman and leader of the Civil Rights Movement, will be the speaker at Caltech's 124th annual commencement ceremony. The ceremony will take place at 10 a.m. on Friday, June 15, on Beckman Mall on Caltech's campus and also will be live-streamed online.

Lewis, who is known as "the conscience of Congress," has dedicated his life to protecting human rights and securing civil liberties both through social movements and as an elected official.

"His example of intellectual courage matched by moral fortitude should inspire the Class of 2018 as they take their next steps forward in life," Caltech president Thomas F. Rosenbaum said in his announcement to the Caltech community, noting that Lewis's visit comes in the same year in which Caltech observes the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1958 visit to campus.

Lewis was first inspired to join the Civil Rights Movement as a young boy who saw the activism surrounding the Montgomery Bus Boycott and heard King speak on the radio. In 1963, as a student at Fisk University, Lewis became chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, organizing lunch counter sit-ins and voter registration drives across the segregated South. He was the youngest of the Big Six leaders behind the 1963 March on Washington, the occasion of King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and, two years later, at age 25, led more than 600 peaceful protestors across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. State troopers attacked the demonstrators, a brutal confrontation that would later be recognized as a turning point in the movement and in American history.

Lewis was elected to Congress in 1986, and has since then represented Georgia's Fifth Congressional District. More recently, his graphic novel trilogy, March, which documents the history of the Civil Rights Movement, has received awards including the American Library Association's Coretta Scott King Book Award and the National Book Award in Young People's Literature.

Lewis himself is the recipient of numerous honors including the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation's Profile in Courage Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

The Heritage Medical Research Institute (HMRI), a nonprofit founded by physician and Caltech trustee Richard Merkin, has extended its partnership with Caltech for a minimum of three more years. This renewed support will strengthen Caltech's ability to pioneer scientific and technological advancements in the life sciences so that patients living with debilitating conditions can live longer, healthier lives.

HMRI's initial gift in 2015 enabled the creation of the Heritage Research Institute for the Advancement of Medicine and Science at Caltech. The program provides nine Caltech scientists and engineers—known as Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigators—with salary support and no-strings-attached research funds that free them to pursue high-risk/high-reward projects.

"It was important for HMRI and myself to ensure that basic science wouldn't be confined to the lab—we wanted to see action and impact," says Merkin, who has served on the Caltech Board of Trustees since 2007. "It's been exciting to witness the advancements HMRI investigators have already made and to witness their drive, focus, and determination."

Read more on the Break Through campaign website.

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has died at age 76 from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Famous for his mind-bending theories of black holes and his popular book, A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes, Hawking was a frequent visitor to Caltech. He did much of his seminal research on black holes during a year-long visit to Caltech from 1974–75. Over the next four decades, Hawking, a professor at the University of Cambridge and a Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar at Caltech, returned to the Institute often, carrying out research and exchanging ideas with faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and graduate students.

"Stephen was not only one of the greatest scientists of our era; he was also a wonderful friend, and an inspiration to me, both personally and scientifically," says Kip S. Thorne (BS '62), Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus. "He lived life to the full. He took me to Antarctica in the depths of the Antarctic winter! His sense of humor was legendary. When he started a sentence, laboriously on his computer, I never knew whether it would end in a deep pearl of wisdom or an off-the-wall joke. His insights into our universe have inspired generations of physicists who follow in his wake, and will continue to inspire for decades to come. I miss him terribly, already."

Hawking was born in Oxford, England, on January 8, 1942. He attended University College, Oxford, where he studied physics, and earned his PhD from Cambridge in 1965, in cosmology. Just shy of his 21st birthday, he was diagnosed with ALS, a neuromuscular wasting disease also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and yet, despite an unfavorable prognosis, went on to live decades longer than expected.

"Stephen Hawking was one of the world's greatest physicists, and his death is an enormous loss," says Sean Carroll, a colleague of Hawking's and a research professor of physics at Caltech. "He did more to advance our understanding of gravity than anyone since Albert Einstein. Stephen was also an irrepressible character who persevered in the face of overwhelming adversity. He traveled frequently, and could have gone anywhere; we were fortunate that he chose to frequently come to Caltech."

Working with mathematician Roger Penrose in 1970, Hawking hit upon one of his biggest discoveries: that the theories of black holes—singularities or infinite curvatures in spacetime—implied that our universe began in a Big Bang. He later showed that black holes leak radiation, called Hawking radiation, and eventually explode slowly over eons—a milestone in scientists' struggle to unify gravity with quantum mechanics. He was also famous for declaring that information that fell into a black hole would be lost forever when the black hole ultimately evaporated, thereby violating fundamental laws of physics.

Hawking received numerous awards and honors, including the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Copley Medal of the Royal Society, and the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. He was named Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in 1982, and was a fellow of Great Britain's Royal Society and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hawking was named the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge in 1979. He retired in 2009, becoming the Dennis Stanton Avery and Sally Tsui Wong-Avery Director of Research in Cambridge's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, a position he held until his death.

Hawking was known for his scientific wagers, including a bet with Thorne and John P. Preskill, Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at Caltech, regarding his declaration on the loss of information in a black hole. He eventually conceded that he had been wrong. In addition, he bet Thorne that the X-ray source called Cygnus X-1 was not a black hole; he lost.

Preskill recalls, "What I'll remember best about my time with Stephen is that we could make each other laugh. I sensed when we first met that he would enjoy being treated irreverently. So, in the middle of a scientific discussion I could interject, 'And what makes you so sure of that, Mr. Know-It-All?' knowing that Stephen would respond with his eyes twinkling, 'Wanna bet?'"

Hawking is survived by his three children—Lucy, Robert, and Tim—and three grandchildren.

Entrepreneur, philanthropist, and Caltech trustee Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe, have pledged $5 million through The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation to endow a professorial chair at Caltech. The chair will be named in honor of David Baltimore, Nobel laureate, Caltech President Emeritus, and the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biology.

Eli Broad, a member of Caltech's Board of Trustees since 1993, has been called a "patron of Los Angeles." For decades, he has been one of the city's foremost civic and philanthropic leaders. Advocating causes ranging from public education to the arts, from life sciences research to a revitalized city center, Broad has been a galvanizing force for our communities.

With this latest gift to Caltech, Eli and Edythe Broad are recognizing the legacy of a scientist who has contributed widely to the understanding of cancer, AIDS, and the molecular basis of the immune response.

Read the full story on the Break Through website

More than 2,000 science enthusiasts flocked to campus on Saturday, March 31, for the first Science for March, a celebration of science held on Beckman Mall and featuring outdoor booths and learning stations as well as indoor lectures on seismology, microscopes, space exploration, antibiotic resistance, and other science topics.

Sponsored by the Caltech Postdoctoral Association; the Graduate Student Council; the Center for Teaching, Learning, & Outreach; and other campus affiliates, the inaugural event aimed to make science more accessible to the local community, especially students in grades K–12.

Tara Mastro, a postdoctoral scholar in biology and biological engineering and co-organizer of the event, says it accomplished its goal of engaging the curiosity of visitors, adding that it was especially rewarding to hear "people in the community asking meaningful questions about the concepts we were presenting. … The event was a huge success."

Group decisions often involve the allocation of scarce resources among members with conflicting interests. Negotiations are part and parcel of such decisions, as they create a natural arena for informal agreements and quid pro quo deals. Do these deals help or hurt the bargaining process? How should legislative decision making be designed to be more efficient?

In her April 25 Watson Lecture, Marina Agranov, professor of economics in the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences at Caltech, will illustrate how the structure and rules of the negotiation process impact how money gets distributed. She will explore these and related questions using the tools of economic theory and experimental economics.

This work is part of Agranov's research into the ways in which communication affects outcomes in various strategic environments. Her work combines theory and experiments to study how institutions affect credible transmission of information.

Agranov received her bachelor's degree from St. Petersburg State Technical University in 1999, her master's degree from Tel Aviv University in 2004, and her PhD from New York University in 2010. She joined Caltech that same year as an assistant professor, and was named professor in 2017.

The lecture—which will be held at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25, in Beckman Auditorium—is a free event; no tickets or reservations are required.

Named for the late Caltech professor Earnest C. Watson, who founded the series in 1922, the Watson Lectures present Caltech and JPL researchers describing their work to the public. Many past Watson Lectures are available online at Caltech's YouTube site.

TeachWeek 2018, a weeklong, campus-wide event designed to provide a forum on diverse and effective teaching practices at Caltech, kicks off April 23 with lectures, open classes, and a photographic exhibit looking back at 100 years of Caltech education.

Created by the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Outreach (CTLO) in 2015, the event, which runs through April 27, is open to professors, graduate and undergraduate students, staff, postdocs, alumni, and other friends of Caltech interested in learning new methods for improving classroom education.

"Teaching is an activity that goes on behind closed classroom doors," says Cassandra Horii, CTLO director. "But TeachWeek literally opens those doors: we have open classes throughout the week where faculty and instructors invite guests to sit in and experience different approaches to teaching across the divisions. This builds an active, vocal, and visible community around this important part of Caltech's mission."

This year's events will feature keynotes by Shirley Malcom, a Caltech trustee and director of education and human resources programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and James Lang, author of multiple books and a monthly column in TheChronicle of Higher Education. Malcom will deliver her talk, "We Were Never Taught to Teach: Knowing Better, Doing Better," on Tuesday, April 24, at 4 p.m. in the Beckman Institute Auditorium. Lang will close the week's events with his talk, "Small Teaching: From Minor Changes to Major Learning," on Friday, April 27, at noon in Dabney Lounge.

On Monday, April 23, CTLO will open its display of more than 100 modern-day and archival images and manuscripts related to teaching, including examples of Nobel laureates' class notes, early problem set drafts and revisions, and the very first chemistry labs at Throop University together with recent views of classes, labs, and field-based and informal teaching. The display will be in the Center for Student Services, 3rd Floor, Brennan Conference Room, from noon to 1 p.m.

"Visitors will really get a chance to reflect on what has changed and what has not—sometimes in surprising ways—about teaching and writing at Caltech through the years," Horii notes.

She adds that the weeklong effort aims to inspire teachers. "We hope this enables faculty and TAs to exchange ideas and try new approaches year-round."

A complete schedule of the week's events can be found here.

For the sixth season of MACH 33, the Festival of New Science-Driven Plays, Caltech Theater is partnering with the Pasadena Playhouse to present three staged readings beginning on April 30.

Each year, MACH 33—which engages students and staff at Caltech and JPL in the selection, development, and performance of new science-driven plays—culminates in staged readings and fully produced shows in the spring. This year, two of the readings will be performed on the Pasadena Playhouse main stage, and one reading will be held in Caltech's Ramo Auditorium. Each reading will include a post-show discussion with the playwright.

The three plays this season are: 

• Theory of Nothing, written by Lolly Ward and directed by Nike Doukas. Pasadena Playhouse; Monday, April 30, at 8 p.m.Max, a condensed matter physicist, and Sugar, a designer, return to their childhood home to pack up the house on the eve of the divorce of their parents: tough-as-nails physicist Brit and sculptor Chuck. When the characters reveal shocking truths about themselves, the entire family is forced to confront questions of honesty, allegiance, and madness.

• Out There Right Here, written by Anna Nicholas and directed by Brian Brophy. Pasadena Playhouse; Monday, May 7, at 8 p.m.It's Autumn, the Santa Anas are blowing, and L.A. is on fire again. Jasper Molloy is an aging Apollo astronaut diagnosed with Alzheimer's; daughter Lucie used to be an archeologist until she found the Lord; and son Hubble is a SETI researcher and atheist who spends his days searching for life in the multiverse. Out There Right Heretakes place at the intersection of science and faith, and asks, "What does it mean to believe in anything?"

• Lie After Lie After Lie, written by Steven Dierkes and directed by Susan Dalian. Ramo Auditorium, Caltech;Monday, May 14, at 8 p.m.In the late 1840s, a Hungarian obstetrician named Ignaz Semmelweis found that the simple expedient of hand washing could help physicians reduce maternal death by up to 90 percent. His discovery was rejected by his superiors—indeed by the whole Western world—and he went mad. Lie After Lie After Lieexplores his story and broader topics in science and society overall. 

Tickets for all three shows are available individually or as a group on the Pasadena Playhouse webpage. Tickets are $18 for each reading. A three-show discount package is available for $25 by calling the Playhouse at (626) 356-PLAY and using the code THREEPACK.

Caltech's third annual TeachWeek—a campus-wide celebration of teaching and learning hosted by the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Outreach (CTLO)—concluded last Friday, April 27. Events included a photographic exhibit of teaching and writing at Caltech, short talks by faculty and others on cutting-edge teaching methods, and a workshop about small changes in teaching that make a big difference for students.

"This year's TeachWeek drew participants from all divisions and gave everyone a chance to explore innovative methods for use in their classes," says Cassandra Horii, director of the CTLO. "Events were very well attended by enthusiastic faculty, teaching assistants, students, postdocs, and staff across the week—a clear demonstration of Caltech's commitment to learning about evidence-based teaching."

Caltech trustee Shirley Malcom delivered TeachWeek's keynote address with a talk titled "We Were Never Taught to Teach: Knowing Better and Doing Better."President Thomas F. Rosenbaum, Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and professor of physics, described Malcom in his opening remarks as "an expert, generous with resource and wit" and emphasized how teaching and education are part of Caltech's mission.

Malcom, who grew up attending segregated schools in Birmingham, Alabama, is now the director of education and human resources programs at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where she leads efforts to improve the quality of STEM education and career programs, to increase access for underrepresented groups such as women and minorities, and to enhance public understanding of science and technology.

Malcom has been a member of the Caltech Board of Trustees since 1999. Watch her TeachWeek lecture above.

As part of the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Neuroscience Research Building construction project, workers will move the Wilson Court bungalows to a new location May 30–June 1.

The 1920s-era bungalows, at the southeast corner of Wilson Avenue and Del Mar Boulevard, will move two blocks to a site near the northeast corner of Catalina Avenue and San Pasqual Street.

The bungalows will be moved by truck between the hours of 4 a.m. and 7 a.m. on Wednesday, May 30 (three buildings); Thursday, May 31 (two buildings); and Friday, June 1 (two buildings). During these times, Wilson Avenue will be closed between Del Mar Boulevard and San Pasqual Street, and Caltech's two Wilson Avenue parking structures will be inaccessible.

During the move:

• Trucks will travel south on Wilson Avenue to San Pasqual Street, deposit each bungalow at its new location, then return to campus via Catalina Avenue.
• Building relocation will stop at 6 a.m., and Wilson Avenue will reopen to normal traffic.
• Bungalow renovation at the new site will occur from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily, and Wilson Avenue will remain open.

When the renovations are completed, the bungalows will once again serve as campus housing.

At its 63rd annual Staff Service & Impact Awards ceremony on May 31, Caltech highlighted two individuals for their more than 50 years of service to the Institute: Bob Logan (BS '68) and Pat Anderson. 

Pat Anderson, who moved to Southern California from her native Mississippi as a teenager and studied at both Pasadena City College and Citrus College, was hired as a receptionist for the Arthur Amos Noyes Laboratory of Chemical Physics shortly before it was dedicated in 1968. She held the position of "floater" for the Division of  Chemistry and Chemical Engineering for several years before settling into her present position as an administrative assistant.

"When I first started, I assisted all of the professors who did not have administrative assistants assigned to them. Each professor was performing different research, so it was quitea learning experience. Everyone used different terminology and acronyms in their research so you had to figure out what it all meant—but eventually you became familiar with the scientific language. We were expected to do everything. I was given a drawing board, Rapidograph pens, vellum paper, electric eraser, templates, rulers, dry transfers—all the drafting tools to do chemical drawings for proposals, class handouts, correspondence and manuscripts. Deadlines were a constant in those days—nothing has really changed in that regard, only better equipment. The manuscripts were submitted (with original drawings), and the actual drawings were published. A professor would sketch something out, and then I would draw it. He would look it over and make the necessary changes. All drawings were done on vellum so they could be copied and cut into the manuscripts, proposals, and class handouts. This was only a small part of what we did. I think back, and I say to myself, 'How did I do that?'" 

Bob Logan (BS '68) entered Caltech as a freshman in 1964 and began working on campus at the Booth Computing Center after graduating. Since then, he has remained part of the campus computing group—which has had a number of different names—and is currently a senior director in Information Management Systems and Services. 

"I started at Caltech working at the Booth Computing Center, where I had spent many hours as an undergrad waiting for output from Caltech's IBM 7094 computer. Since then, there has been a complete revolution in computing. A fitness band has more computing power now than all the systems in the Booth machine room in 1968. But the speed of change was even faster then, before Moore's Law took over. We could get a $500,000 or $1 million machine, and there would be something significantly faster a year later. When I started out, we had a typical university computing center where people came in and ran punch cards for data analysis. Eventually, I designed and supervised the installation of the first real campus fiber optic network, which we ran down in the steam tunnels in 1993. Along the way, my work helped support a lot of important research. In the '70s, for example, I ran the data collection system for the "Lunatic Asylum," which analyzed moon rocks, so computing stayed interesting, and I always found something fun to do."

#SoCaltech is an occasional series celebrating the diverse individuals who give Caltech its spirit of excellence, ambition, and ingenuity. Know someone we should profile? Send nominations to magazine@caltech.edu.