Winter/Spring 2025 Events

With approximately 20 dynamic events each year in Southern California, Northern California, and New York City, the Caltech Associates program offers regular opportunities to learn about what's new and what's next directly from the people defining future directions in a broad range of disciplines. Event Q&A sessions afford the chance to gain even more insight. For event registration or information about becoming a member, please contact us at (626) 395-3919.

Guest policy. We welcome guests interested in joining the Caltech Associates to accompany a member at up to two Associates events before deciding. Members should always attend events with their registered guests. Please note that reservations for guests unaccompanied by a member are subject to cancellation.

Emerging technology has the potential to endow nonliving physical systems with intelligent behaviors similar to biological systems. Lulu Qian, professor of bioengineering, will explain how her research takes inspiration from principles in biology and conceptual frameworks in computer science to develop methods for constructing artificial molecular machines. She will discuss DNA-based neural networks that classify complex and noisy molecular information, proving that rudimentary brain-like behavior can exist in test tube chemistry.

Her presentation will examine simple ways to create nanostructures with programmable patterns comparable to the smallest living cells. She will also describe the creation of swarm molecular robots, demonstrating that nanomechanical tasks can be carried out autonomously by simple molecules following energy-efficient algorithms.

As provost, David A. Tirrell, the Ross McCollum-William H. Corcoran Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and Carl and Shirley Larson Provostial Chair, helps to secure Caltech's future as a source of discovery and innovation. We will hear from Provost Tirrell about the latest Institute developments.

The evening will also feature a presentation from Niles A. Pierce, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Bioengineering and executive officer for Biology and Biological Engineering.

Thomas F. Rosenbaum, president and the Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and professor of physics, will visit New York City for an intimate dinner with President's Circle members. He will also share Institute updates.

A panel discussion moderated by Harry Atwater, the Otis Booth Leadership Chair in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science and the Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science, will examine the ethical perplexities of artificial intelligence and its public policy implications.

Panel participants include Michael Alvarez, the Flintridge Foundation Professor of Political and Computational Social Science; Frederick Eberhardt, professor of philosophy; and Daniel O'Dowd (BS '76), a 2020 Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award winner and founder and CEO of Green Hills Software.

A fundamental goal of genetics is the ability to look at the sequence of a genome—the DNA instructions found in cells—and understand the differences between species and individuals. The better we become at reading the genome, the better we can understand fundamental biology, address genetic diseases to improve human, animal, and plant health, and ultimately write genomes for biotechnology applications.

Paul Sternberg, the Bren Professor of Biology and the William K. Bowes Jr. Leadership Chair in the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, will share his view of the state of the art in genetics. He will discuss how genome analysis, systematic genome editing, and data science, such as artificial intelligence, coupled with conceptual understanding (the old-fashioned "feel for the organism"), work together to allow unprecedented progress in genetics and its applications.

Many of the basic ingredients and phenomena of the universe—including how matter was formed after the big bang—are not understood. Quantum-controlled molecules can provide sensitive probes of atomic nuclei and undiscovered particles that might be hiding inside them.

Assistant Professor of Physics Nick Hutzler will discuss how studying nuclei with deformed shapes can help us gain understanding and reveal fundamental properties of the nucleus. These investigations are typically conducted at large facilities, but a new class of approaches uses small-scale experiments that leverage advances in quantum science. Professor Hutzler will describe how his lab combines ideas from nuclear physics, quantum science, and physical chemistry to design molecules that can be controlled down to the quantum level and examine them to reveal the properties of exotic nuclei.

A leading center for energy, physics, environmental science, and nanotechnology research, Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) investigates scientific questions of national and global importance. Work conducted at BNL has been awarded seven Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry, five of which resulted from work with the facility's particle accelerators. The lab is supervised by the United States Department of Energy's Office of Science.

We'll tour this fascinating facility with Nobel laureate Barry Barish, the Ronald and Maxine Linde Professor of Physics, Emeritus. Barish shared the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics with fellow Caltech faculty Kip S. Thorne, the Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus, and Rainer Weiss of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for contributions to LIGO.

Thomas F. Rosenbaum, president and the Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and professor of physics, and Katherine T. Faber, Simon Ramo Professor of Materials Science, welcome President's Circle members to their home for an elegant evening to celebrate members' generosity to Caltech.

The elusive dream of large satellites in space that beam electric power to Earth around the clock is now closer than ever. For more than ten years, three Caltech professors, Harry Atwater, Ali Hajimiri, and Sergio Pellegrino, the Joyce and Kent Kresa Professor of Aerospace and Civil Engineering, and their students and collaborators have been developing new technologies that will make it possible to provide power to Earth from space at an economically affordable cost.

Professor Pellegrino will talk about Caltech's scalable system architecture, which consists of identical modular spacecraft that fly in formation. The development and demonstration of these modules have involved a series of conceptual and technological breakthroughs. He will also discuss a recently completed space demonstration of the three main technologies developed at Caltech and the techno-economic analysis that underpins the team's claim that affordable power from space is within our reach.