Posts - Caltech Magazine

“When I was secretary of ASCIT [Associated Students of the California Institute of Technology], I was encouraged to take on my own project. At the time, Jim Barry [Caltech’s drawing, painting, and silkscreen art director] mentioned that he was looking to phase out the screen printing equipment on campus, and I realized it could be an opportunity to set up a student-run screen printing space. With…

Carlos Olivas won this year's Rise Service Award for his dedication to student tutoring and community and is graduating from Caltech with a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering. #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 .

“The most meaningful work I did while at Caltech was with the Caltech Y [a student-driven organization that focuses on community service, leadership, and outdoor activities]. I’m the chair of the Caltech Y’s Student Activism Speaker Series. The series brings people from the community around us to speak to students about issues of science policy, human rights, climate change, and more. It’s import…

“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 be…

“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 som…

Luke Lamitina holds the school record for the javelin throw and represented Caltech at this year's NCAA Championships, earning All-American honors and a fourth-place finish. Lamitina is graduating from Caltech with a bachelor's degree in astrophysics. #SoCaltech is an occasional series celebrating the diverse individuals who give Caltech its spirit of excellence, ambition, and ingenuity. Know som…

“The relationships that I've made with friends, with mentors, with teammates are truly the things that are near and dear to my heart as I reflect on my time at Caltech. Two of my best friends graduated two years ahead of me—they were really integral in helping me acclimate to the social scene at Caltech. “Caltech is very, very hard, and a big reason why I was able to get through it was my support…

“I went to an all-girls high school, was on an all-girls robotics team, and my mom works in tech, so I credit a lot of my confidence in engineering to those spaces and role models. But I am also very aware that not everyone gets that advantage. Since I benefited so much from having encouraging girls’ spaces, I wanted to help build that kind of space at Caltech too. That’s why I lead the Society o…

“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…

"When it came time to make a decision about coming to Caltech, and I had the opportunity to visit some schools, somehow Caltech was just the most out there. It was so radically different, very small and collaborative. Also, being able to swim while here didn't hurt. “I've been swimming since I was in elementary school. It's been very much a constant in my life. What I really love about it is that…

“I was a non-STEM major when I moved to the US 10 years ago, and I never thought I could be good at science. But my parents were like, ‘You're in the new world, why don't you try new stuff?’ I don't know why, but I decided to study chemistry—and it was amazing. … Somehow I got into UCSD as a transfer student, and I joked to my friend that I would go to Caltech for grad school. But then I actually…

Eleven of Caltech’s 2026 graduates discuss their achievements, challenges, and lessons learned during their time at the Institute. Ava Barbano “When I was secretary of ASCIT [Associated Students of the California Institute of Technology], I was encouraged to take on my own project. At the time, Jim Barry [Caltech’s drawing, painting, and silkscreen art director] mentioned that he was looking to p…

From Left to Right: Rohan Bhattarai, Bhakti Ahir Ahir, Ansh Tiwari. Credit: Lance Hayashida The ongoing effort to retrofit the crucial fume hoods in Caltech labs is already reaping money and energy savings. By Andrew Moseman The fume hood is one of those essential but sometimes invisible parts of life in the lab, a high-powered portal that sucks air away from a workstation so that any possible co…

Amber Liu. Credit: Sergio Solorzano “My hardest competition was the US National Table Tennis Championships in 2023 when I was 15. I needed to reach the semifinals to make the national team for the world championships the next year. After a long fight, I placed first in the under-15 girls’ singles event. It was a lot of pressure because it’s what I had been working for the whole year. It’s also si…

Illustration by Marian Femenias-Moratinos. By Alexander Gelfand The Milton and Rosalind Chang Career Exploration Prize rewards big swings. The prize, awarded by the Caltech Alumni Association, provides up to $65,000 to help graduates who received their degrees within the last decade to pursue interests outside of their careers through innovative projects with meaningful societal impact. “This awa…

Courtesy of Francois Tissot Post-fire research continues to support the local community and beyond. By Lori Dajose (BS ’15) More than a year after the 2025 Los Angeles fires, Caltech labs are pressing forward with research projects to provide answers in service of public health and safety. Through investigations such as testing for heavy metal contamination, monitoring air quality, and assessing …

Illustration by Joey Guidone. Caltech is building tools for and shaping approaches to the discipline, which could change the way we live. By Lori Dajose (BS ’15) Bllions of years of evolution have slowly, iteratively, produced a vast library of genomes through DNA mutations, encompassing the genetic information for everything that has ever lived. Mother Nature has had a monopoly on writing in the…

Credit: Claire Bucholz Field trips, even those not centered solely on research, are a core element of instruction in Caltech’s Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS). The division offers all graduate and undergraduate GPS students the opportunity to attend one enrichment trip during their time at the Institute. These excursions, which are funded by philanthropic donations, typically …

Composite by Jenny Somerville. How Caltech researchers blend fields and scientific approaches to achieve results. By Ker Than Theoretical physicist Kathryn Zurek has dedicated much of her professional life to trying to solve the riddle of the universe’s missing mass, also known as dark matter. In her view, dark matter could be far richer than many theorize—not a single particle but an entire “sha…

Credit: Sergio Solorzano Terry Tumey, who joined Caltech in October 2025, brings with him professional experience as a college football player and coach, and as a college athletics administrator at NCAA Division I, II, and III schools, including UC Davis, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, and, most recently, Fresno State. Here, we speak with Tumey about his first few months at the Institute and his vision …