About Us
For nearly 100 years, the Caltech Associates has helped propel Caltech’s mission of discovery while forging lifelong connections between its members. The Associates’ collective efforts have seeded innovations and helped elevate the impact of Caltech science and engineering.
We are a community that socializes, learns, discovers, dines, and travels together. Founded in 1926, our mission is to create a better world by philanthropically supporting the Institute through membership dollars that provide crucial unrestricted funding of pathbreaking research.
Our members have contributed funds toward 37 campus buildings, 52 endowed professorships, and countless fellowships and scholarships—so far. More than 1,700 members help to provide Caltech's faculty, students, and researchers with the resources and freedom they require to advance transformative discoveries.
Not far from the Caltech campus, lights blazed from the windows of the home of Henry E. Huntington, retired railroad magnate, and art collector. That night of March 9, 1926, marked the first formal meeting of a new organization: the Associates of the California Institute of Technology.
One hundred of Southern California's most influential men and women banded together to "aid and advance the welfare of the California Institute of Technology." Caltech was emerging as a scientific world leader committed to educating a small number of students in an atmosphere of research conducted by scientists of the highest distinction.
At the time, Caltech comprised five buildings, part of a master plan by one of the nation's foremost architects, Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. The orange groves, a symbol of the early campus, quickly disappeared as new structures were built. The growing physical plant and increasing research commitments were of constant concern to Robert Andrews Millikan, director of physical research, chairman of the executive council, and Caltech's first Nobel laureate. The stage was set for the founding of the Associates.
Millikan and Huntington, with the help of trustee Henry Robinson, decided to find a hundred founding members in southern California who "would be both able and eager to annually invest $1,000 for a period of ten years." Trustees Allan Balch, Henry O'Melveny, Norman Bridge, Harry Chandler, and Henry Robinson pledged to promote the idea of the Associates of the California Institute of Technology. When the Associates membership met the initial goal of 100 members, Henry Huntington extended the gracious invitation to hold the first formal meeting in his home.
Later, Millikan said that "There is no date in the history of the California Institute of Technology more significant than March 9, 1926, the first meeting of the California Institute Associates." This event signalized the recognition by a large and exceedingly influential body of southern California citizens of the importance of the Institute's service.
Caltech’s growing intellectual community needed a place to gather, as faculty were being hired and the Associates had outgrown the Huntington living room. Renowned astronomer and Caltech trustee George Ellery Hale conceived a gathering place for the Associates, faculty, and staff to promote the exchange of ideas in science, art, and literature.
Associates Mr. and Mrs. Allan Balch provided the funds to build the sumptuous Athenaeum for use by the Institute faculty, the Associates, and the staffs of the Mount Wilson Observatory and the Huntington Library. Designed by Gordon Kaufmann, it is said to be one of the finest buildings of its kind in the country.
The Athenaeum was built during the very lean years of the Great Depression. In 1931, at the Associates' first formal dinner, many Associates welcomed visiting professor Albert Einstein as their inaugural speaker in the back meeting room of The Athenaeum, which is appropriately named the Hall of the Associates.
It is no exaggeration to say that Caltech is Caltech because of the Associates. Their legacy of sustained, unrestricted giving—$1,000 per year for 10 years—helped to create the modern Caltech campus, recruit and retain the brightest minds at every stage of scientific inquiry, and provide the critical foundational funding for daring research ideas.
During the darkest hours of the Great Depression, when many universities were compelled to retreat, the Associates' unfettered dedication and generosity propelled Caltech forward.
Over the ensuing decades, their investments paid dividends to society and provided the margin of excellence that, to cite just one example, the Institute counts 47 Caltech alumni and faculty who have won a total of 48 Nobel Prizes, most recently by Professor Emeritus John Hopfield in 2024, who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics "for foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks."
Membership in the Associates opens the doors to the Caltech community. Intellectually curious and globally focused, Associates members are passionate about being part of solutions that will shape the future and forging friendships along the way.
We know that investing in Caltech yields powerful results. Our faculty and students investigate the biggest ideas today, from environmental solutions to the exploration of our solar system and beyond, from quantum computing to life-saving medical technologies.
Associates members are invited to be a part of the Caltech community in a variety of ways. With regional committees in Northern California, San Diego/Orange County, West Los Angeles, and the East Coast, Associates participate in stimulating presentations and inspiring travel opportunities, all featuring Caltech faculty, students, and internationally renowned experts. Events offer timely, intimate insights into the Institute's latest discoveries and research in science, technology, engineering, medicine, and the arts.
As a member of the Caltech Associates, you have intimate opportunities to engage with Caltech faculty, Nobel Prize winners, JPL engineers, and luminaries at the forefront of their disciplines.