In response to the international travel restrictions, more than 500 people gathered at Millikan Pond on Wednesday afternoon to express support for the international members of the Caltech community.

Michael Roukes, spokesperson for the concerned faculty who organized the event, kicked off the gathering by noting recent federal policies potentially threaten foreign-born community members' status as legal residents. "Many now feel uncertain, even fearful," he said.

Roukes, the Robert M. Abbey Professor of Physics, Applied Physics, and Bioengineering, says the collective sense of unease over the new policies prompted faculty members to organize the gathering, the largest of its kind on campus in more than 40 years.

The event featured comments from 15 additional faculty and students—including two Nobel Laureates—addressing the uncertainty and difficulty that travel restrictions have caused and highlighting the important contributions of scholars from abroad.

In her remarks, Dianne Newman, the Gordon M. Binder/Amgen Professor of Biology and Geobiology, emphasized to the audience that freedom of travel is crucial both personally and professionally.

"I'm alive today because my grandparents and great grandparents came to America fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 20th century," she said. "My PhD mentor is French and my postdoctoral adviser from Guatemala. Many of my postdoctoral scholars and graduate students are from overseas or are first-generation Americans."

Listing 20 countries from which students and colleagues supporting her work hail, she added, "My research would not have been possible, much less successful without the contributions of these people. In my opinion, any policy that limits the ability of talented individuals to come to the United States to pursue the American Dream is a betrayal of our country's most noble principles."

Throughout the event, members of the audience crowded around a poster-sized scroll to sign their names to a statement of support for "the international members of the Caltech community who have been affected by travel restrictions." Several dozen signatures in various colors had already covered the scroll as the last speakers came to the podium.

In her comments to the crowd, Giuliana Viglione, a geological and planetary sciences graduate student, said that with nearly half of graduate students being international students, the campus is necessarily affected by changes in federal travel policy.

"The bubble that insulates us from the world beyond has burst," she said. "We cannot afford to remain silent as members of our own community are detained without cause. ... We cannot afford to remain silent as the very basis for higher learning is threatened.

"Our diversity should be celebrated, not castigated," she added. "Our international students should be championed, not condemned."

Held on Beckman Mall on March 9, Caltech's 32nd Annual Engineering Design Competition featured teams of robots and their handlers battling for the best times navigating a "Robstacle Course."

The V15TA team—Yunsang Choi, Mayra Melendez, Allison Penn, Eduardo Plascencia, and William Yu—won first place by having its robots successfully traverse 27 pylons, a seesaw, and a ramp to deliver a ball into a hole at the end of the course. 

A slideshow of the event can be found here.

Video of the event is online here.

The Winnett Student Center—home to the Red Door Café, the Caltech Store, the Ticket Office, a recording studio, and a variety of other multiuse meeting and event spaces—has served as a central gathering place for Caltech's community for more than 50 years. Now, the Institute is poised to break ground on the construction of a new campus hub to be called the Hameetman Center.

Named in honor of Caltech trustee Fred Hameetman (BS '62) and his wife, Joyce, who made a $6.2 million lead gift to renovate Winnett in 2012, the Hameetman Center will provide a redesigned flow that will make the building more versatile and functional for today's campus community. A gift from emeritus professor of theoretical physics Steven Frautschi and his wife, Mie will enable the center to also include a rehearsal hall for the music programs.

A committee was established in the fall of 2012 by the then Vice President for Student Affairs Anneila Sargent to solicit input from the center users and campus community. The committee developed a program plan in 2013-14 that would serve the changing needs of the campus, add the music rehearsal hall and provide better use of the interior space as well as bring the building up to date in terms of technology. Following these discussions and extensive consideration of rehabilitating the existing structure by the architects, the decision was made to demolish the above ground portion of the existing building and construct an entirely new structure. "With this new structure, we will be able to remedy the many limitations of Winnett to provide an attractive and inviting community gathering center as well as provide much needed rehearsal space for our very popular music programs," says Vice President for Student Affairs Joe Shepherd.

In preparation for the initial demolition of Winnett, which is currently scheduled to begin in late June, the Institute will soon begin relocating many of the services offered in the current building.

The first scheduled relocations, according to Dimitris Sakellariou, assistant vice president for student affairs operations, are the Red Door Café and the Ticket Office.

• The Red Door will temporarily move, for the duration of the project, to share space with the existing campus convenience store, or C-store. To accommodate this change and upgrade the space to serve these two functions, the C-Store will close for renovations beginning on March 17. The Red Door Café itself will remain open through March 31 and will reopen within the C-Store as soon as the joint renovated space receives city approval. The two facilities will move to a permanent and expanded space within the Hameetman Center when the construction project is finished.
• The Ticket Office will move permanently to the Keith Spalding Building of Business Services, next to the Post Office Center. The Ticket Office will remain open in its current location until the new facility is ready in early April.

Future temporary relocations will include the Caltech Store, which sells Caltech apparel, memorabilia, technology, and supplies, among other items. According to Sakellariou, the Caltech Store will likely move to the first floor of Millikan Library soon after Caltech's Commencement ceremonies in June. Planning continues on the logistics and timing associated with relocating many of the other services currently housed in Winnett.

Student Affairs is working with the current users and members of the community in finalizing some aspects of the design, Sakellariou says. The new center will include as an open, versatile lounge and common area on the first floor; a new music rehearsal room, conference room and multipurpose area on the second floor; a recording study, club rooms and storage for the Caltech store on the basement level. An enlarged outdoor space will be provided adjacent to Red Door, which will be located near its present location on the north side of the building.

According to Greg Norden, the project manager for the Hameetman Center, "the key historical elements, of the current building will also be preserved and repurposed." These include the bricks into which alumni have carved their names and initials and the brass T currently outside the Caltech Store.

The new Hameetman Center is scheduled to open in fall 2018.

This spring, Israeli programmer, poet, and new media artist Eran Hadas will be teaching at Caltech as an artist-in-residence through the Israel Institute. Hadas, who is based in Tel Aviv, combines poetry and computer science, creating software that writes poetry and text with input from the Internet. His Wikipedia entry describes him as "an Israeli poet, software developer, new media artist, and the author of seven books"—a set of titles he embraces.

"I always joke that I consider myself a poet, but in order to be taken seriously, other people should consider me as a software developer," Hadas laughs. "I once heard the saying, 'Poetry is the R&D department of humanity.' I wish to augment it to 'the R&D department of post-humanity,' but at the core of either is the decision to step out of our particular selves and raise questions about our being."

Hadas will be introducing his Caltech students to computational literature, covering the evolution of poetry and poets from the end of the Romantic era until 2045, when futurist Ray Kurzweil predicted the singularity—the point at which artificial intelligence and technology surpasses human capabilities. Hadas has no concerns about the students' receptiveness to this new field.

"Poetry means different things to different people," Hadas notes, "and I'm not going to impose my own views on the students but rather try to embrace their feelings and backgrounds, and bind them to a poetic path. Having said that, I find many similarities between poetry and coding. Poetry can be viewed as a series of rewritings that modify form but preserve content. This process bears resemblance to code refactoring, which is a process that coders often experience as an impulse, much like an urge a poet might have.

"Caltech is globally known for its spirit of academic excellence, as the home of many of the world's brightest researchers and students," he adds. "I think it will be the first time I am going to be out-geeked not by just one or two students but by the entire class."

Hillary Mushkin, research professor of art and design in mechanical and civil engineering, orchestrated Hadas's visit to Caltech. "This is the first class that's cross listed between computer science and humanities," she says, "and that's really exciting." Mushkin looks forward to the different perspective on computing that Hadas will bring to Caltech as well as the questions his class will raise about the purpose of computing and the relationship between computing and poetics.

For Hadas, the biggest draw is the Caltech community. "The most important thing in every experience is the people," he says. "I have met Hillary Mushkin, who introduced me online to other faculty and staff members, and I was deeply impressed. I have learned from every teaching activity in which I was involved and from every interaction with people, especially coming from different backgrounds. In the context of Caltech, it will be a challenge for me to identify the DNA of the Institute and adapt so I can keep some of it with me when my stay is over."

Hadas is equally excited by the opportunity to "have even the slightest effect on the way the students view their world," he says, "To look at data not only as raw data but also as information, always unnatural, always involving a certain level of bias. I would like my students to be committed not to the data but to the people who are affected by it. I want them to realize what power they have in their hands and what responsibilities come with it.

"I hope the students come up with new ideas. Many times in history, people approached things that were difficult to model formally and tried to go by reverse engineering. An airplane is actually an attempt to remodel a bird. It gives me the hope that reverse engineering poetry can come up with surprising results. It's going to be fun."

Humans have set foot on the moon and may one day walk on Mars, but to push farther into space we will likely need a pit stop. With that in mind, 32 students from around the world will meet up at Caltech from March 26–31 for the 2017 Caltech Space Challenge, a competition to design a launch-and-supply station—dubbed Lunarport—for future space missions. The event is organized by the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT) to help mentor the next generation of aerospace engineers.

During the weeklong biennial event, the students—a mix of graduate and undergraduate—are divided into two teams, each of which has just five days to create a fresh design to tackle an upcoming space-exploration challenge. At the first Caltech Space Challenge in 2011, the teams were tasked with exploring an asteroid and returning with a sample of rock or ice. In 2013, the teams designed campaigns to land humans on a martian moon. That year, the winning team proposed a robotic precursor mission followed up by a three-astronaut exploration of both of Mars' moons, Phobos and Deimos. And at the most recent Caltech Space Challenge, in 2015, the students planned a mission to an asteroid that had been brought into lunar orbit, to extract its resources and demonstrate how they could be used.

The goal of every competition is to present students with a challenge that humanity is expected to face in the not-too-distant future. For example, a station like the Lunarport, if constructed someday, would provide a staging facility for heavy payloads, at which rockets could be refueled to continue their journey to deep space.

While working on the challenge, the students will also receive expert guidance via lectures from engineers at Orbital ATK, Blue Origin, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA), and other organizations. At the end of the week, each team will present its solution, and a winner will be selected by a jury of industry experts.

This year, 806 students applied to participate in the event—more than the combined number of applicants for the three prior Caltech Space Challenges. The 32 successful applicants come from 14 different countries on four continents.

This year's Caltech Space Challenge is being organized by Caltech graduate students Ilana Gat (MS '14) and Thibaud Talon (MS '14). The Caltech faculty advisers are Paul Dimotakis (BS '68, MS '69, PhD '73), the John K. Northrop Professor of Aeronautics and professor of applied physics; Jakob van Zyl (MS '83, PhD '86), senior faculty associate in electrical engineering and aerospace, lecturer in electrical engineering, and director for solar system exploration at JPL; and Anthony Freeman, lecturer in aerospace and manager of the JPL Innovation Foundry. The event is supported by Caltech and its Division of Engineering and Applied Science, JPL, the Keck Institute for Space Studies, and Caltech's Moore-Hufstedler Fund. Its corporate sponsors include Airbus, Microsoft, Orbital ATK, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Schlumberger, and Honeybee Robotics. 

Mentors in the Caltech course Design for Freedom from Disability gave students Stephanie Moon and Lawrence Lee a new view of the power engineers have to benefit others.

Says co-instructor Andy Lin: "It's gratifying to see that the work I'm helping with is making a difference in students' lives and the lives of people with disabilities. At the end of the course, I get teary-eyed. I see how the students want to maximize their engineering skills to help people."

Read more.

If you want to know what's special about a Caltech education, talk to Professor Tom Soifer (BS '68).

"We prize giving students opportunities to do something new—giving them freedom and responsibility," he says. "Caltech encourages people to do spectacular things."

To celebrate the completion of the North Field renovation, Caltech and the Department of Athletics, Physical Education and Recreation invite the campus community to the April 14 baseball game against Whittier College, which will begin with a ceremonial first pitch on the new field. 

The pitch, at 3 p.m., will precede the Orange Out game, which will be played on the new state-of-the-art artificial turf, which is designed to provide a consistent playing surface and reduce campus water use. The high-quality turf also includes a subsurface cork layer that keeps the field playable on hot days.

The new field, the product of an eight-month renovation project, features a regulation college soccer field and baseball diamond, upon which the intercollegiate baseball, men's soccer and new women's soccer programs can compete, in addition to club and intramural sports. 

Caltech Athletics is pleased to announce the members of the 2017 Hall of Honor.  Four scholar-athletes and one distinguished alum and professor will join the 21 other individuals and three teams already enshrined on Sunday, May 21.

The class consists of C. Kevin Boyce '95, Gerald Eisman '71, George Papa '94, Kristen Zortman (Sutherland '05) and Robert P. Sharp '34.

This year's Hall of Honor ceremony will take place during the annual scholar-athlete awards banquet, which will be held on Sunday, May 21 from approximately 12-2 p.m. in Ramo Auditorium.  No registration is required, although seating is limited and will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.

Read more.

Over a thousand middle and high school students and their families and friends, hailing from 62 schools across Southern California, gathered at Caltech on Saturday, April 8, for the annual SoCal State Science Olympiad Tournament.

The annual daylong science and engineering tournament was hosted at Caltech by the Caltech Science Olympiad Team and the Caltech Y. The event provides an opportunity for students to test their wits in a wide range of written and hands-on activities, including everything from tests on anatomy and minerals to engineering bottle rockets and helicopters.

Students in middle school and high school divisions completed in 25 events, and the six teams from each division with the highest scores received trophies. The first-place middle school team, Oak Valley Middle School, and the first-place high school team, Troy High School, advance to the national tournament at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, on May 19–20.

More than 80 Caltech undergraduates and graduate students as well as additional alumni, staff, and individuals from neighboring universities and colleges volunteered at the event.

Caltech will welcome 266 students—along with 280 family members—to campus April 20-22 for Prefrosh Weekend, the Institute's signature welcome event for newly admitted first-year students.

Prefrosh Weekend features more than 45 academic and student life panels and events to give parents and students a feel for the Institute; these include the popular Caltech Club Fair and Carnival along the Olive Walk on Friday afternoon. In an effort to highlight the importance of diversity in the Caltech community—and more broadly in science and engineering disciplines and careers—the admissions office is also sponsoring several sessions on the topic, as well as a Women in STEM roundtable. Admitted students have until May 1 to commit to Caltech; about 265 are expected to be enrolled.

This year's admitted class of 525 students is the Institute's most diverse yet, with record high percentages of women and of underrepresented minority students.

"This class of admits represents a tremendous amount of effort to create a more diverse and inclusive community of scholars," says Jarrid Whitney, executive director of admissions and financial aid. "We are also able to offer all eligible students need-based financial aid, which meets 100 percent of demonstrated need; this means a Caltech education can become a reality for accepted students. Prefrosh Weekend is truly the culmination of our community's efforts to enroll the best and brightest STEM leaders."

Prefrosh Weekend also presents an opportunity for members of the campus community to welcome members of the incoming class. To that end, Whitney asks all of those on campus during the event "to engage visitors and offer friendly assistance to anyone who appears lost or has questions about Caltech during their stay."

This month, we launch Caltech magazine, a new publication for the community featuring a range of stories about the Institute, its people, and its impact on the world.

Caltech magazine replaces E&S magazine, which shared the Institute's transformative research for eight decades. E&S magazine began life in June 1937 as a means for disseminating news to and about Caltech alumni, then morphed a few years later into Engineering and Science Monthly. By the time the magazine carried the E&S logo for the first time in 1967, its focus had broadened to include both alumni and general Institute research.

Over the years, generations of Caltech graduates came to rely on E&S as one of the primary ways to stay connected with their alma mater. Caltech magazine is the next step in its evolution. After months of audience research, discussions with a broad variety of the magazine's readers, and conceptual design work, we have reimagined our publication to become a truly Caltech magazine, one that both embodies the entire Institute and serves all its stakeholders.

In each issue, readers will find a wide variety of stories, targeted toward the many different audiences such a magazine serves. Complementary material, including videos, will be available throughout the year on the magazine's website, magazine.caltech.edu.

We look forward to your thoughts and comments on how we can make Caltech magazine as useful and compelling as possible for you; you can reach us at magazine@caltech.edu.

Aadith Moorthy, a junior majoring in materials science and computer science, has been selected to receive a Goldwater Scholarship for the 2017–18 academic year.

The Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program awards scholarships to college sophomores or juniors who intend to pursue research careers in science, mathematics, and engineering.

Moorthy, who hails from Palm Harbor, Florida, was one of 240 students chosen this year from a pool of 1,286 nominees. The scholarships, which were established by Congress in 1986 to honor the late Senator Barry Goldwater, cover the cost of tuition, other fees, books, and room and board for one or two academic years.

Moorthy studies in the lab of Brent Fultz, the Barbara and Stanley R. Rawn, Jr., Professor of Materials Science and Applied Physics, researching ways to improve ability of graphene to store hydrogen fuel.

Fuel cell vehicles currently on the market rely on pressurized tanks to store their hydrogen supply, which presents safety concerns because of the high pressures needed to store enough fuel to power a vehicle through a commute. Graphene, a material consisting of carbon atoms arranged in chicken wire-like sheets or tubes, could present a solution because it has the ability to store hydrogen through adsorption—a process in which hydrogen molecules cling to the graphene's surface without the need for high pressures. By combining many layers or tubules of graphene, it may be possible to store enough hydrogen to power a car. Moorthy is focused on optimizing graphene's properties for such an application.

Moorthy is also the founder and chief executive officer of ConserWater, a startup that uses artificial intelligence programs he developed to create efficient irrigation plans for farmers.

This scholarship is not Moorthy's first national honor: in 2010, at the age of 13, he won the National Geographic Bee. At the age of 16, he correctly answered every question on the AP Calculus exam, becoming one of only 11 people in the world to do so that year.

Moorthy plans to attend graduate school after Caltech and hopes to pursue research on energy efficiency, energy storage, and water resources.

"These are some of the technologies humanity needs the most today," he says. "Water resources are intricately linked with energy too—using less water means more energy saved. For example, a great percentage of California's energy is spent just moving water, either from deep underground, or just around the state."

He credits the Institute for providing him with the opportunities that made him competitive and enabled him to be selected as a Goldwater Scholar.

"Everyone says attending Caltech is like drinking from a firehose—and that's pretty true," he says. "It's given me a very strong background in materials research and computer science, especially being able to take graduate level courses."

Phillip Liu, a junior studying bioengineering, was awarded an Honorable Mention this year by the Goldwater Foundation.

Lauren Li, a senior in biology, has been selected to receive a 2017 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. Her project, "Sounds of Healing: Exploring the Treatment of Trauma Through Music," will take her through Austria, Australia, South Africa, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The Watson Fellowship provides a grant of $30,000, and is awarded to graduating seniors nominated by one of 40 partner institutions. According to the Watson Foundation website, "Fellows conceive original projects, execute them outside of the United States for one year and embrace the ensuing journey. They decide where to go, who to meet and when to change course." This year, 40 fellows were selected.

Li, a native of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was first inspired to study the healing properties of music through her experiences with music and health advocacy at Caltech. A four-year member of Caltech's chamber music program, Li also has been active in student groups that raise awareness about and build support for mental health. We talked with her about her motivation to pursue this project and her plans for traveling the world.

What is music therapy and what does it mean to you?

Music therapy, as I see it, is simply music as a means of healing. A true healing process is holistic—one that requires both physiological and mental well-being. This concept appeals to common sense, and it's something that's hard to disagree with, yet few existing treatments focus on addressing both sides of this process. I have always believed strongly that music is innately human. I have taught violin abroad, and through my experiences performing and teaching music, I have learned that by connecting through music you can often transcend barriers in language and culture. It was therefore very natural for me to start with music in searching for that connection between mind and body that is so crucial to healing. 

Why did you choose each of these countries to visit? What do you plan to do in each country?

Since I will be working with trauma survivors, I chose to visit English-speaking countries. Through a common language, I will be able to develop relationships and genuine connections with the people I work with. 

I will start off in Austria, a country with a rich history of music and innovative means of studying physiological components of music—like how rhythm translates into certain biological patterns in the body. Then I will go to Australia, where I will be working with Iraqi refugee families and learning about music therapy from the perspective of both psychologists and music therapists. Finally, I will go on to South Africa and Trinidad and Tobago, where I hope to take what I've learned and build some foundations where this type of musical application is less established. 

Music therapy is a growing field, yet I feel like there is a gap in terms of having a quantitative understanding of how music can translate into healing. So another key part of my project will be developing a way to study music with a more analytical mindset.

What are you looking forward to while traveling around the world?

In addition to my project, I'm looking forward to learning more about ethnomusicology throughout the world. For example, South Africa has a culture and identity deeply grounded in rich musical traditions. For almost 2,000 years, the Djembe drum has continually evolved with the needs of South African societies, taking on roles as a sacred drum in healing ceremonies, rites of passage, and much more. I am excited to explore these types of musical frameworks ingrained in each country's identity. I will also have opportunities to work on musical improvisation and composition in a variety of collaborations with local artists. I am excited to begin this journey in which I will not only grow independently as a musician, but also be able to explore how different factors, such as culture, musical style, and therapeutic techniques, play a role in the healing ability of music therapy.

Juniors interested in applying for the Watson Fellowship should contact Fellowships Advising and Study Abroad.

The days are growing longer, the temperatures are growing warmer, and the Caltech community is once again preparing for that time of the year—summer research season.

This year, over 400 students have been accepted into the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) program, a campus staple since 1979. They will, under the supervision of a faculty mentor, engage in 10 weeks of research during the summer months.

The program begins in February each year, when students who wish to participate in SURF find a faculty mentor and submit a research proposal to the program's coordinators. Those who are accepted receive a $6,000 award to fund their research.

Candace Rypisi, director of student-faculty programs, says research holds many benefits for students, beyond even the chance to co-author a peer-reviewed paper.

"We know from studies that students who participate in undergraduate research generally have better academic records, have higher GPAs, graduate at a higher rate, and go to graduate school at higher rates," Rypisi says.

Maria Manzanares, assistant director of student-faculty programs, says research teaches students to think differently.

"The way they develop questions is different," she says. "The way they learn changes."

In the months leading up to the start of SURF, students may begin working a few hours a week in labs to prepare for their research experience, while organizers hold orientations and activities like Undergraduate Research Week, which ran from April 3 to 7.

That week included a presentation by the editors of the Caltech Undergraduate Research Journal, encouraging students to publish their research, as well as other activities designed to get students thinking about why undergraduate research is important to them.

Anita Chen, a senior majoring in chemistry and minoring in English, has participated in SURF twice, most recently in the lab of Michael Hoffmann, the Theodore Y. Wu Professor of Environmental Science, where she worked on creating polymers for portable water filtration. Before that, she engaged in research in the lab of Nate Lewis, the George L. Argyros Professor and professor of chemistry, developing catalysts that generate hydrogen gas. Her research experiences, she says, taught her skills that enhanced other parts of her educational experience.

"My experience with freshman chemistry lab was not good. I was clumsy," she says. "SURF definitely helped me get my wings in the lab. As a freshman, I didn't realize how impactful research could be to education."

Emily Miaou, a junior majoring in chemical engineering, has been doing her undergraduate research with Frances Arnold, the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry, and director of the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center.

In Arnold's lab, Miaou is focused on evolving a common enzyme for use in sustainable energy production. She says it's given her a perspective that helps her in her studies.

"You connect the dots and say, 'Oh, I've done this in lab before,' so you understand the concepts better," she says. "I'm incredibly grateful because I don't think I would have this experience elsewhere."

Manzanares says that surveys completed by SURF show they also gain a sense of accomplishment because of their experiences.

"They say it was one of the most important parts of their undergrad experience—that they loved being treated like a full participant in research like a grad student, that they felt like they were making a contribution," she says.

For Noah Huffman, a sophomore majoring in physics and business administration and management, that feeling has been powerful. He says that as a native of an area of western Pennsylvania where the Rust Belt and Appalachia overlap, he didn't have a lot of exposure to opportunities in the sciences.

"There was never anyone in my life who had anything to do with science," he says. "You have a lot of honest, hard-working people, but if you asked them what a scientist does day to day, they probably couldn't answer you."

This summer, Huffman is headed to the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen to study how light interacts with matter at the atomic and subatomic levels. It's a field of study that could have applications within quantum computing.

Huffman's first SURF experience, the summer after his freshman year, took him to JPL, which is managed by Caltech for NASA and hosts some SURF students. There, he studied thermoelectric devices—which convert heat directly into electricity without any moving parts.

"To have the opportunity to not just be on the bleeding edge of science, but to do it at NASA …

Here I am, a 19-year-old kid, and the only thing I know is that I know nothing," he says. "To work at an organization that put a man on the moon is incredible.

Hoping to become better mentors to Caltech undergrads, dozens of staff and faculty members gathered on May 11 for a daylong series of workshops, presentations, and discussions aimed at helping them hone their skills.

The event, Mentoring Across Difference: Conference on Mentoring Undergraduate Researchers, was open to anyone from Caltech or JPL who mentors undergraduate students in research.

The day opened with nine workshops from which participants could choose, featuring topics such as managing personality differences in a mentoring relationship, balancing competing demands, dealing with procrastination, and avoiding the pitfalls of perfectionism.

"Good mentoring relies on a set of skills and experience that develops over time," Candace Rypisi, director of Student-Faculty Programs, told the audience. "Our hope today is to provide you with information and a set of tools that you can use as you move forward on your mentoring journey."

Kelsey Boyle, a graduate student working in the lab of Jacqueline K. Barton, the John G. Kirkwood and Arthur A. Noyes Professor of Chemistry and Norman Davidson Leadership Chair of the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, hosted a workshop on how to translate and apply teaching pedagogies to mentoring situations. She said the day was a good reminder to mentors that the start of summer research programs is approaching quickly. 

"It's nice to get us thinking about who we're going to mentor," she says. "It gets people thinking about these programs before Day One."

Following the workshops, the 80-or-so attendees gathered for a keynote lecture by Becky Wai-Ling Packard, a professor of psychology and education and director of the Weissman Center for Leadership at Mount Holyoke College. Wai-Ling Packard, who is responsible for mentoring new faculty at Mount Holyoke, stressed the importance of creating an environment where mentored students can thrive.

In the afternoon, participants attended breakout sessions with panels of undergraduate students who shared their personal experiences of being mentored in a research setting.

Stefan Baldet, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Erik Winfree, professor of computer science, computation and neural systems, and bioengineering, attended the breakout session for the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering. Baldet says he understands how difficult school can be for undergraduate students at times.

"I have been a student for a long time. I know myself. I struggled with things. My colleagues have struggled," he says.

He said that much of the information shared is something he has already learned through the years, but that mentoring conferences are valuable for keeping mentors up-to-date.

"It's good to know what the state of the art of mentoring is, so I know if I'm missing anything," he says.

Caltech president Thomas F. Rosenbaum and Katherine T. Faber, the Simon Ramo Professor of Materials Science, welcomed 160 seniors from Caltech's graduating class at their home over this past month during four individual dinners. The senior dinner program, started in 2015, provides an opportunity for students and administrators to come together to celebrate the undergraduate students' accomplishments and time at Caltech, while highlighting the importance of staying connected to one another and the Institute for years to come. This photo was taken at the May 16 gathering, which was the last in this year's series; more photos from the recent gatherings can be found here.

In fairness, Michael Mazza, a first-year Caltech graduate student, did warn the fourth-grade class at Cleveland Elementary School that science "can be messy."

Conducting an experiment to extract DNA from plant cells, the kids enthusiastically squished strawberries in plastic baggies filled with a detergent-alcohol solution—creating a sticky red mixture that many children soon dribbled on themselves and their tables. But by the end of the lesson, each student was able to show off a vial of distilled DNA they had created and, in spite of the mess—or maybe a little bit because of it—they were thrilled to be able to do real science themselves.

"I love their enthusiasm," says Mazza, who studies chemistry and chemical engineering. "I love that so many of the students are excited for science every Wednesday."

Mazza is one of several Caltech grad students and postdocs who volunteer at Cleveland Elementary as part of a program called Science Wednesdays, which provides weekly hands-on science lessons for all the grades at the K-5 Pasadena school.

The program began in January when the school—a science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) magnet campus—was unable to fill a position for a half-time STEAM coach. School principal Debra Lucas reached out to Caltech for help. The Institute's Center for Teaching, Learning, & Outreach (CTLO) was able to partner with the school and its teachers to provide specialized instruction and demonstrations.

Lucas says the program has been a success not only because it allows the children to learn science from actual scientists, but also because the scientists "talk about their personal journey and what makes them curious and want to learn more. That brings relevance to our students' lives."

Fourth-grade teacher Beth Burleson Mortilla, whose class conducted the DNA extraction experiment, says she agrees and lauds the Caltech instructors as great role models who are "contagiously enthusiastic about science."

She adds, "They are so patient with my students. If an experiment doesn't work the way they'd planned, they take time to explain to the kids that this happens in science and discuss what they might do differently next time. The program is extremely useful on many levels. It's great science—often science that I don't know, so I'm learning right along with the kids."

Mitch Aiken, CTLO's associate director for educational outreach, says that the Cleveland students are not the sole beneficiaries of the program. "Our students are getting deep experience with preparing and teaching lessons, developing classroom management techniques, and gaining confidence in their own skills."

Aiken says that outreach initiatives like Science Wednesdays "are critical to providing opportunities for our scholars to share their work with teachers and younger students, helping Caltech contribute to a more diverse STEM pipeline. This benefits Caltech, our future students, and the larger community of K-12 learners. By helping our students and researchers share their passion for science with these young people, we are supporting the next two generations of scientists."

A less messy experiment was conducted by Cecelia Sanders, a first-year graduate student in geological and planetary sciences.  She coached a Cleveland second-grade class through a different genetics exercise, using envelopes filled with colored snippets of paper that represented dog genes coding for ear shape, tail shape, eye color, coat color, and kind of hair. Choosing one gene from each envelope, students created a paper chain of "DNA" to represent their dog's characteristics and then drew a picture of their canine.

Sanders appreciates the opportunity to teach in the program for several reasons. "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."

She adds, "Working with kids—any kind of educational outreach—connects science to humanity. Everybody is born with a sense of wonder and curiosity, and I don't think there's anything more important in the world than nurturing that."

Julie Jester (BS '14) wanted to make Caltech history—specifically the history of Caltech pranks. As president of the Prank Club, the electrical engineering major knew she had a tradition to uphold. Caltech undergraduates have been devising elaborate and inventive goofs for decades upon decades.

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