Damian R. Wilson

Mark at the blackboard. (Credit: Clara Murgui) Mark B. Wise, Caltech’s John A. McCone Professor of High Energy Physics and a leading theoretical particle physicist, died July 10 at age 72. Wise spent more than four decades at Caltech, where his work helped shape modern particle physics and where generations of students knew him as an unusually approachable professor with a dry sense of humor. His m

On April 11, Caltech students traveled to the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden in Arcadia for a Make-A-Difference Day service project organized by the Caltech Y. Volunteers spent the morning removing Algerian ivy from tree trunks and root systems, helping protect the Arboretum’s plant life from invasive overgrowth. The 127-acre Arboretum, established as a public garden in 1947, sits on historic Rancho Santa Anita, once known to the native Tongva people as Aleupkigna, or “the plac

NASA announced on May 22 that it will open the next contract to manage and operate the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to competition, marking a potentially significant change in the nearly seven-decade relationship among NASA, Caltech, and JPL. Caltech has managed JPL for NASA since 1958, when the laboratory was transferred from the U.S. Army to the newly established space agency. JPL itself trace

On May 27, California Senator Adam Schiff visited Caltech for a tour that moves from the hardware of quantum computing to the philosophical puzzles of quantum mechanics. Schiff, joined by his wife Eve, toured Prof. Manuel Endres’ lab, met with President Thomas F. Rosenbaum, and spoke with John Preskill about entanglement, hidden variables, many worlds, time travel, and what Feynman might have thought of AI-generated Feynman lectures.

On May 16, in Frautschi Hall, Katherine Vondy’s

(Photo: Caltech News) As Thomas F. Rosenbaum prepares to conclude twelve years as Caltech’s president, the Institute stands between continuity and transition. Under Rosenbaum’s tenure, Caltech expanded its physical campus, deepened its investment in quantum science and sustainability, increased the proportion of Pell-eligible students, and navigated a turbulent national climate for higher education an

Serving as Editor-in-Chief of The California Tech has meant learning that a newspaper is never simply present to itself. Each issue arrives as if final (laid out/proofed/printed/distributed), but it is also always provisional. A trace of arguments not fully resolved, conversations still unfolding, absences we could not quite make visible, and futures we did not yet know how to name. In that regard, editing the Tech has been an exercise in responsibility to what exceeds the page. The work is

On a Saturday afternoon this spring, part of Caltech’s inaugural Integrated Core cohort found itself somewhere few first-year lab sections go: wandering the aisles of Home Depot. They were looking for tubing, buckets, connectors, and whatever else might help them build small-scale carbon capture systems from scratch. One group was growing algae. Another was working with limestone. A third was thinkin

_The Interhouse featured the promised neon pyramid, a shimmering deluge from a model Nile, eschatological wall art, and

A recent cybersecurity incident involving Canvas, the learning-management system operated by Instructure and used throughout Caltech, disrupted universities during exams week and raised concerns about the possible exposure of user data. Instructure claims it detected unauthorized activity on April 29 and additional related activity on May 7, when some users saw altered Canvas pages; the company temporarily placed Canvas in maintenance mode and late

The 2016/Coachella-inspired stage was rife with symbols from the era, including Nyan Cat, rainbow poop emojis, dabbing unicorns, and an angelic Harambe (may he rest in peace). (Photos: Damian R. Wilson) On the night of May 16, Fleming House staged its own festival revival with “Flemchella,” a 2016/Coachella-themed Interhouse that invited students to “Blast From the Past” in the Fleming courtyard fro

Editor’s Note: What follows is an extract from an achronological artifact recently found on the steps of the Tech’s Pasadena office building: an apparent dispatch from the future, inexplicably recovered in time for our May 19 issue. TACIT House on 275 S. Hill Avenue, made time-traveling haven. (Image: Kari Coleman) Most parties don’t become history. But the ones that do tend

![The cast, from left to right: Sullivan Braun as Lt. Nicholas Baron (Baron Tuzenbach), Jacob Buligan as Andrew Prozorov (Andrei), Sarah Gates as Natasha, Prof. Michael Vanier as Dr. John Chamberlain (Ivan Chebutykin), Ellis Spickermann as Irene (Irina), Marcin Kurowski as Lt. Col. Alexander Vershinin, Julie Belville as Masha, Dima Burov as Theodore Culligan (Fyodor Kulygin), Rémy Morgan as Olga, Michael Gutierrez as Cpt. Sully Sullivan (Vassily Solyony), and Therese Bagsit as Anita (Anfisa). (C

A courtroom sketch that renders Cole Thomas Allen, center, appearing before U.S. Magistrate Moxila Upadhyaya, in federal court, Thursday, April 30 in Washington. (Image: Dana Verkouteren/AP) Federal authorities have identified Cole Thomas Allen, a 31-year-old Torrance man, as the suspect in the April

Lynn Booth and Kent Kresa stand before the newly dedicated aerospace building. Their $50 million gift in late 2025 established the Lynn Booth and Kent Kresa Department of Aerospace. (Photo: Chris Flynn/Caltech News) Caltech formally dedicated the Lynn Booth and Kent Kresa Department of Aeros

NASA’s Orion spacecraft splashes down in the Pacific Ocean off California on April 10 at 5:07 p.m. PDT, concluding a nearly 10-day lunar mission. Recovery teams from NASA, the U.S. Navy, and the U.S. Air Force then begin bringing the crew and capsule aboard the USS John P. Murtha. (Photo: Bill Ingalls/NASA) NASA’s Artemis II mission [concl

On March 31, Caltech Student Affairs introduced the Orange Folder, a centralized online resource designed to help faculty and staff recognize and respond to students in distress. Announced in a campus-wide letter from Joseph Greenwell, Associate Vice President of Student Life and Chief Student Affairs Officer, the initiative aims to consolidate existing support resources into a single, accessible guide. The tool provides practical steps for ide

NASA’s Artemis II Space Launch System lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Wednesday, April 1. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Just days after liftoff from Kennedy Space Center at 6:35 p.m. EDT on April 1, Artemis II has reestablished a capability absent since Apollo 17: human transit beyond Earth orbit. The mission represents the first crewed validation of a

Lloyd brought a touch of the surreal to Interhouse this year with an Alice in Wonderland-themed Lloyderhouse — equal parts whimsical and unhinged in the best way. Walls came alive with Carollian iconography, from a looming Red Queen to playing cards and warped storybook motifs, while a vivid multicolored Cheshire Cat grinned beside the DJ booth, flickering in and out of view under the lights. And, of course, the pole returned: one of Lloyd’s most storied traditions. This year, dancers were of

Carl Grillmair, an astronomer at Caltech’s IPAC science and data center for astronomy and planetary science, died on February 16. He was 67. His death has shaken the Caltech community, where colleagues remember as both a creative scientist and a foundational member of IPAC’s research programs. Grillmair spent nearly three decades at Caltech after joining IPAC in 1997. Over the cour

(Photos: Shanna Xiao) On the night of February 21, Dabney Hovse welcomed students across campus for its Lunar New Year-themed Interhovse celebration. The courtyard centerpiece was a striking red dome topped with gold, glowing from within with shifting colored lights that illuminated the space throughout the night. Inside what is otherwise Dabney’s dining hall, visitors explored a maze

(Photos: Kensuke Shimojo and Camilla Fezzi) Venerable House hosted its annual Interhouse party on the night of February 28, continuing into the early morning hours of March 1, transforming the Venerable Courtyard into a Spider-Verse-inspired celebration. After roughly eight weeks of preparation, organizers unveiled an elaborately decorated courtyard complete with themed artwork and

All photos courtesy of Damian R. Wilson. Thanks to the Interhouse Committee, Caltech’s Pi Day tradition rose again this year — a very Caltech study break for a very Caltech finals season. The well-rounded celebration happened right on schedule at 1:59 a.m. on March 14, where night-owl pi(e) enthusiasts converged in the Ricketts-Fleming courtyard for an event that was, by all measures,

There is a chill passing through Caltech. Over the past year, the foundations of U.S. education, research, and democracy have been systematically targeted by the Trump administration. Hostile rhetoric against racial minorities, immigrants, and the LGBTQ community has escalated into ICE kidnappings, withdrawal from international collaborations, bans on federal programs promoting “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and more. Within the education and research community, the fallout has been immedi

Shlain presented as part of a speaker series for the Caltech Longevity Club, which is led by Andrea Olsen (CNS/BEM ‘27). Other club leaders include William Wang (BS ‘29) as Vice President and Team Members Mahi Ravi (ChemE ‘26, Lloyd) and João Pedro Bra Cardoso Ferreira Bastos (CS ‘26, Blacker). (Photo: Caltech Longevity Club) Dr. Jordan Shlain, who presented to the Caltech Longevity

The southern Alberta sky — the kind some people are desperate to fight for. (Photo: Flickr) Thanks to a certain U.S. president, the new year has seen a curiously Canadian topic readmitted to the news cycle: Alberta separatism. A t

Parker Thompson, a second-year undergraduate studying applied and computational mathematics, Secretary of ASCIT, and a peer advocate, passed away on February 3, 2026. He was 19. Thompson arrived at Caltech in fall 2024 as a QuestBridge Scholar and participant in the First-Year Success Research Institute. In his application to the Institute, one recommender called him “a once-in-a-lif

From Parker’s candlelight vigil. (Photo: Iris A. Lubashev) yours is the death that cheapens all words and as i write this i scan each one not for beauty but for adequacy not for music but for weight i test them in the mouth of the sentence i press them against the fact of you gone and each one gives slightly under pressure as if language were made of softer materials than we had b

On February 12, CDS celebrated Black History Month in Browne Dining Hall with a wide-ranging menu featuring soyrizo mac ‘n’ cheese, chicken and sausage gumbo (with a tofu option), BBQ jackfruit riblets, fried okra, jerk chicken and yams, shrimp grits (or tofu), chicken and waffles (with a vegetarian option), banana pudding, and biscuits. Themed décor added to the celebratory atmosphere. (Photos: Kensuke Shimojo, Damian R. Wilson) ![](https://xguzskbxiptvhbyggkpl.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/p

I was somewhere on the edge of that “museum” when the spam musubi began to take hold. It hit like contraband adrenaline, that sugar-slick rice and salt-fat meat. The unearthly intimacy of plastic wrap torn too fast. And suddenly there was a terrible roar, neural-networked boundaries announcing themselves and vanishing at once in the very same neoned bang: how I am tortured for my hauteur, my gall, as a