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.
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."
Responding to the uncertain state of funding for environmental research and the opportunities afforded by new advances in technology, trustee Ronald Linde (MS '62, PhD '64) and his wife, Maxine, have initiated a giving challenge to help ensure that Caltech can maintain current programs and move forward with important new work in climate science. When complete, the Ronald and Maxine Linde Challenge for Climate Science will generate at least $3 million to scientists and engineers across the Caltech campus who are seeking to better understand Earth's changing climate.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Caltech celebrated its 20th annual Take Your Children to Work Day on April 27, giving community members an opportunity to "introduce their children to the exciting things that go on at Caltech and to interest them in science, research, and possibilities for the future."
Pictured is Jason Marshall, a senior postdoctoral scholar in mechanical and civil engineering, showing off an experiment that he took up in a zero-gravity airplane to find out how sand behaves in such conditions.
Marshall and other Caltech students and postdocs volunteer in K–12 outreach programs through Caltech's Center for Teaching, Learning, and Outreach. Children at today's event also took part in a scavenger hunt around campus and beat the heat with ice cream on the Beckman Institute patio.
The Athenaeum will celebrate the grand opening of its new kitchen (known as the Rath Al Fresco Pavilion, pictured above) on May 12, a date that also marks the beginning of the Rath's outdoor summer dining season.
The club's new 1,900-square-foot kitchen addition opened in April, doubling the size of the previous food-preparation area and included new features such as a rotisserie and a gas-fired pizza oven.
The Rath Al Fresco Pavilion is open from 11:30 a.m.–2 p.m. daily and offers diners a variety of new grab-and-go lunchtime options, including salads and sandwiches. Al Fresco dining is available 5–9 p.m. Monday through Friday.
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."
New assistant professor of chemistry Alison Ondrus says she's excited to apply the tools of traditional chemistry to the study of biological problems and thinks Caltech, with its small, interdisciplinary environment, is the perfect place to do it.
Ondrus received her PhD in organic chemistry in 2009 from MIT, where she learned to synthesize structurally complex molecules. From there, she became interested in biology and began studying the Hedgehog signaling pathway as a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The Hedgehog family of proteins is responsible for many basic functions in animals, including development and organization of the overall body plan. Mutations in Hedgehog pathway genes can lead to congenital deformities as well as both juvenile and adult cancers.
At Caltech, Ondrus plans to use her chemistry background to continue studying the Hedgehog signaling pathway and address mysteries about how essential small molecules, such as cholesterol, control Hedgehog activity during the development of embryos, a process known as embryogenesis.
In synthetic organic chemistry, you build complex molecules from scratch. You start with a hypothesis for how to make an interesting molecular structure in the most convergent, elegant, efficient way possible based on the reactions that you choose. From there, you go to the lab and try to build the molecule.
I'd spent a lot of time just looking at the structures of molecules and appreciating the richness of structure, so when I had an opportunity to see how the same principles translated to biological activity, a new world opened up. I started finding myself thinking more and more about all of the small molecules that are already present in our own bodies. I've always been fascinated by human health and human development, and I started to question how these molecules participate in normal physiology and disease. I started reading to try to find examples of where people had at least circumstantial evidence that small molecules played key roles in regulating a biological pathway, in particular in human health.
Through my reading, I came across the really fascinating pathway that I now study—the Hedgehog signaling pathway.
Hedgehog is important in almost every aspect of how an embryo becomes a human form, and its deficiencies showcase its importance. It's responsible for establishing our body plan, from our left-right symmetry to how many digits we have. As you can imagine, defects in the pathway lead to really acute phenotypes because it's so fundamental in these early processes. The pathway also plays a role in various cancers, most notably basal cell carcinoma—skin cancer—the most prevalent form of cancer in humans.
We know that certain small molecules that are based on cholesterol can turn the pathway on or off, but we don't know what enzymes produce these molecules, where they're localized, or how they interact with the Hedgehog pathway. Elucidating these cellular processes is essential to understanding how the pathway controls things like body patterning and brain development, and how that can go wrong and lead to cancer.
If we can understand what components of cholesterol metabolism are necessary for Hedgehog activity, then we can start to address much more specifically some of these medical conditions and intervene in ways that we haven't yet considered.
I'm going to merge the synthesis part of my background with my understanding of signal transduction to ask questions about cholesterol and related molecules, and their role in regulating the Hedgehog pathway. Small molecules are often the missing link in hypotheses regarding Hedgehog pathway signal transduction. You may have two proteins in the pathway that communicate via these very specific small molecules, but without having chemical tools to ask questions in a precise way, the mechanism remains unknown. What are the exact structures of these molecules? How do they perform this communication? Something that's unique about our lab is that we can synthesize the specific cholesterol molecules needed to answer these questions.
At Caltech, there are really no barriers. Nobody says you can't do something or that an idea is too unprecedented. There's a cultural acceptance that doing new things is fundamentally exciting and valuable. That's what I really appreciate about Caltech.
I love yoga and riding my bike, and reading both Eastern and Western philosophy. I just finished listening to the audiobook of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn, which I recommend to anyone.
This article originally appeared in the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of Caltech magazine.
Nearly two years ago, philanthropist Tianqiao Chen emailed Caltech biologist Richard Andersen about the work Andersen was doing to help paralyzed patients operate a prosthetic arm using only their thoughts and intentions. "We had just had a big breakthrough that was published in Science and was reported throughout the world," Andersen recalls. "He saw our work on the BBC, and so he came here to meet with me. We talked for an hour and a half, we exchanged ideas. A month later, he came with his wife, Chrissy Luo, and again, we had a tremendous conversation."
That conversation sparked an idea that became a proposal that led to broader conversations and, last December, to a $115 million gift that—as part of Break Through: The Caltech Campaign—created the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech. The Chens' gift dovetailed perfectly with a key Caltech initiative: to apply Caltech's unique interdisciplinary and computational strengths to the study of the brain, with a particular focus on what these approaches can reveal about the brain's biology, chemistry, and even its engineering, as well as about human emotion and behavior.
In announcing the gift, Rosenbaum said, "There are few problems as important as understanding the brain: understanding how people think; understanding how people interact with the world; understanding how we can translate that knowledge into interventions that improve people's lives and improve their ability, both mentally and physically, to operate in society.
"The Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech will let us do something special because we are now bringing individual talents together to transform the study of the brain.
"Together, the Chens and Caltech have identified this as a major area of investment, and together we will establish a partnership that will change the world."
What Their Charge is
David Anderson, the Seymour Benzer Professor of Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, has been named the inaugural holder of the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Leadership Chair and director of the institute. In an interview, Anderson talks about how the new institute would shape neuroscience at Caltech.
The motivation for inquiry into the brain is twofold. One is to satisfy our innate curiosity about how this complex machine works. The other is to try to gain understanding that will help improve human health and welfare in general.
Advances in our understanding of the brain circuits of emotion, for example, will help us to understand and treat psychiatric disorders. Advances in understanding how we learn and remember will help us to treat learning disabilities and perhaps to improve memory and retention. On the other side of it, understanding how the brain functions as a computing device will help inform our engineering of computers that are inspired by the biology of brain-circuit architecture.
The Chen gift will allow us to encourage exploration into areas that are not yet ready for government funding and, most importantly, that are at the interface between different scientific disciplines, particularly biological sciences and physical and computational sciences.
Neuroscience, arguably more than any other aspect of biology, is a science that requires intense computation, because understanding the brain is about understanding how billions and billions of neurons function in orchestras to regulate our thoughts and behavior. To do that we need new engineering-based technologies to make measurements, which in turn generates big data. This data requires computational approaches to make sense of it and theory to model it. What Caltech has to offer to a greater extent than most other institutions is the marriage between the biology of the brain and the mathematics of the brain.
I see my role as institute director as maximizing the engagement of the Caltech community in neuroscience research, particularly in recruiting people who have not previously participated in research into this area. The opportunity that the Chens have provided us with is the chance to change not only the type of problems that we can solve here but the way we approach those problems.
Go Wider
Neuroscience Prize Awarded to David Anderson
How They'll Get It Done
The Chen Institute at Caltech involves faculty from across Caltech's six academic divisions, creating a campuswide interdisciplinary community of neuroscientists, biologists, chemists, physicists, engineers, computer scientists, and social scientists, all with the shared goal of understanding the fundamental principles that underlie brain function. It comprises five centers, each with a unique charge and each led by a researcher whose work is already shaping the future of neuroscience at Caltech.
The T&C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center
LED BY RICHARD ANDERSEN, T&C CHEN BRAIN-MACHINE INTERFACE CENTER LEADERSHIP CHAIR;
JAMES G. BOSWELL PROFESSOR OF NEUROSCIENCE
A brain-machine interface is a method of recording or stimulating the brain and connecting it bi-directionally to a machine. An example of this, in our research, would be decoding the intent of paralyzed subjects, then using that to control a robotic limb or computer.The advance we have made at Caltech is to record from a more cognitive part of the brain so we can, in a fraction of a second, decode the intent of the subject and execute the movement. When the subject thinks, "I want to pick up a glass of water," we can decode that and then with smart robotics achieve very smooth movements. It is both an intuitive and a very smooth operation, so it's been a real advance in the field.
It takes my breath away every time I see the subject sitting there in his or her wheelchair being able to, just through their thoughts, control robotic limbs or play a virtual piano or type on a virtual keyboard. It is just an amazing thing, and it thrills the patients as well. It is the first time since their injury that they can actually interact physically with the world around them in tasks that previously required limb movements.
Through the T&C Chen Brain-Machine Interface Center, we hope to achieve three major goals. One is scientific, discovering how populations of neurons work together to produce these sensations, perceptions, and intentions. The second is clinical, helping paralyzed patients and patients more generally with neurological diseases that affect both perception and movement. The third is advancing neurotechnologies to allow for less invasive or noninvasive recordings of high detail from the human brain. This will be, to my knowledge, the first brain-machine interface center more broadly examining perception, intent, and the capabilities of the human.
This gift from the Chens will be so central to what we can do. In patient trials, continuity is critical. We need funding stability over a period of years for a complex, large interdisciplinary group that is centered on the patients and also the environment around them. Now, we can be sure that we will have no disruption in the research or in the clinical trials as they progress.
Go Wider
Controlling a Robotic Arm with a Patient's Intentions
Next Generation of Neuroprosthetics: Science Explained (video)
Go Deeper
Decoding Motor Imagery from the Posterior Parietal Cortex of a Tetraplegic Human
The T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience
LED BY COLIN CAMERER, T&C CHEN CENTER FOR SOCIAL AND DECISION NEUROSCIENCE LEADERSHIP CHAIR;
ROBERT KIRBY PROFESSOR OF BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS
We are interested in what's going on in the brain when people are making decisions that mostly affect themselves, and when they are interacting with other people.
We will attack problems such as limited willpower and self-control, particularly in decisions about food, drug addiction, and procrastination. Early evidence indicates that an area called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, underneath your temple, keeps in mind the distant, bad outcomes from tempting choices in order to exert self-control.
One of the hallmarks of the T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience is that we use many different tools. Working closely with the technicians in the Caltech Brain Imaging Center (the CBIC), we use functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, to enable us to see bloodflow throughout the brain. We also use EEG, which measures activity near the cortical surface at a rapid time scale (every one millisecond) to see fast and slow thinking. We also study people with damage in certain areas: If a person has a broken amygdala, for example, and they cannot tell whether another person is afraid, we can be sure that the amygdala is a necessary part of a circuit for detecting fear.
The establishment of this center is an acknowledgment that the study of the neural activity that creates human decisions, based in the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, is an important part of neuroscience at Caltech. It also will help us plan long-run studies, five or 10 years, in which we can build up a solid understanding of the brain brick by brick. We can try a dozen new approaches, some of which will be dead ends, knowing that when one approach does work, we have the capacity to pour time and energy into it to see where it takes us. We can turn money into science, knowing we can afford to follow the science wherever it leads us.
Go Wider
Testosterone Makes Men Less Likely to Question Their Impulses
Social Hormone Promotes Cooperation in Risky Situations
Go Deeper
Single Dose Testosterone Administration Impairs Cognitive Reflection in Men
Vasopressin Increases Human Risky Cooperative Behavior
The T&C Chen Center for Systems Neuroscience
LED BY DORIS TSAO (BS '96), T&C CHEN CENTER FOR SYSTEMS NEUROSCIENCE LEADERSHIP CHAIR;
PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY; HOWARD HUGHES MEDICAL INSTITUTE INVESTIGATOR
To think, remember, imagine, and see—all these amazing capacities of the brain come from billions of neurons with quadrillions of precise connections interacting to form the most remarkable dynamical system in the universe. Caltech has a strong emphasis on understanding things at a deep, fundamental level, exemplified by the founders Hale, Millikan, and Noyes. Will we ever be able to understand the brain completely, at the level that we now understand the basic laws of physics? That is what this new center seeks to find out. We are at an infant stage in this quest right now: mostly still describing how single neurons respond under different conditions. To move forward, we will need new experimental tools for observing large populations of neurons and new computational approaches for analyzing this data. The new center will help build this infrastructure.
Our lab's approach is unique in two ways. First, we want to understand the complete problem of vision—
not just how an object is recognized or how it's localized but how the entire system works, including all the interfaces. Second, we are fearless about combining different techniques. We were one of the first labs in the world to combine fMRI with electrophysiology. That led to a whole new picture of how the part of the brain that's involved in object recognition is organized.
Systems neuroscience right now is a collection of silos, with researchers studying emotion, or vision, or decision making. This new center will inspire and enable us to work toward the larger goal of understanding how these different systems are talking to each other. How does a sensory percept trigger formation of a memory? How do internal states and sensory inputs interact to generate behavior? How does the brain decide when to route information from one area to another? Is there a general programming language that the software of the brain is written in? How do answers to these questions change across brain evolution?
Go Wider
Altered Perceptions
Go Deeper
The Effect of Face Patch Microstimulation on Perception of Faces and Objects
The Center for Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience
LED BY VIVIANA GRADINARU (BS '05), ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF BIOLOGY AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING;
HERITAGE MEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE INVESTIGATOR
My group works on understanding neural correlates of behavior. The main problem we are currently working on is understanding how a very powerful therapy, deep-brain stimulation, works. There are difficulties around that, because the brain is a very complex organ. It is highly heterogeneous; it is difficult to map. These are our challenges.
The brain is not only difficult to study but also difficult to access since it is protected by the blood-brain barrier. This keeps pathogens at bay, but it also makes it difficult to deliver therapies to the brain. We are very excited about our latest work, where we've been able to engineer viral vectors to cross the blood-brain barrier and deliver products brain-wide. Those products can take the form of labels for anatomical mapping, but also therapies.
The Center for Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience will be instrumental in giving us a hub to exchange ideas and amplify these technologies. We are excited about the potential of the teaching lab that's planned through the Chen Institute at Caltech, where students and teachers will work together on technology transfer and enhancement.
The Chen Institute at Caltech is instrumental in allowing us to understand the brain in all of its complexity, because there is an understanding that the brain is not about the molecules alone, or the cells alone, or behavior alone, but rather it is the interaction across the levels. The Chen Institute at Caltech has centers that address each of these levels and unifies them under one umbrella, with lead investigators working together for an integrated understanding of the brain.
Go Wider
Mapping Neurons to Improve the Treatment of Parkinson's
Delivering Genes Across the Blood-Brain Barrier
Go Deeper
Cholinergic Mesopontine Signals Govern Locomotion and Reward through Dissociable Midbrain Pathways
Cre-dependent Selection Yields AAV Variants for Widespread Gene Transfer to the Adult Brain
The Caltech Brain Imaging Center
LED BY JOHN O'DOHERTY, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY
The Caltech Brain Imaging Center, or CBIC, was founded in 2003 through a gift from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and, over the last 13 years or so, we have been providing Caltech faculty, staff, researchers, and students with the research tools to obtain images of the living brain.
Here in our center, we can take structural pictures of the brain as well as use fMRI, which takes a second-by-second look at how activity in the brain changes in relation to the functions it is implementing. If a particular part of the brain is working more than another part, this causes a change in the amount of oxygenated blood flowing to that part of the brain. We can detect that signal, giving us insight into which portions of the brain are working at particular moments in time.
My main research question is trying to understand how the brain learns from experience to make good decisions for the future. Knowing this is fundamental to understanding ourselves as humans, and also impacts our comprehension of what happens when things go wrong in our capacity to make decisions.
The brain imaging center is a critical component of the overarching Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech, providing facilities to faculty across not only humanities and social sciences but also biology and biological engineering as well as chemistry and chemical engineering. Through the facilities we offer here, we can provide a bridge between different types of research activities taking place across the Chen Institute at Caltech.
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.
Nearly two years ago, philanthropist Tianqiao Chen emailed Caltech biologist Richard Andersen about the work Andersen was doing to help paralyzed patients operate a prosthetic arm using only their thoughts and intentions. "We had just had a big breakthrough that was published in Science and was reported throughout the world," Andersen recalls. "He saw our work on the BBC, and so he came here to meet with me. We talked for an hour and a half, we exchanged ideas. A month later, he came with his wife, Chrissy Luo, and again, we had a tremendous conversation."
That conversation sparked an idea that became a proposal that led to broader conversations and, last December, to a $115 million gift that—as part of Break Through: The Caltech Campaign—created the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience at Caltech. The Chens' gift dovetailed perfectly with a key Caltech initiative: to apply Caltech's unique interdisciplinary and computational strengths to the study of the brain, with a particular focus on what these approaches can reveal about the brain's biology, chemistry, and even its engineering, as well as about human emotion and behavior.
Read more in Caltech magazine.
