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.
On March 4, the Senate Commerce Committee voted to advance the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2026, authorizing a $24.7 billion budget for this fiscal year, extending operations for the International Space Station through 2032, and — for the first time — backing plans for a permanent crewed presence on the Moon.
When I first met Pedro Neves, a visiting researcher from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it was at a Watson Lecture in October 2025. Our shared native language, Portuguese, provided an immediate shorthand, but the conversation quickly moved to the mechanics of the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point.
Fourth-year mathematics undergraduate Akshar Ramkumar has been selected as one of 16 recipients of the Churchill Scholarship, which provides funding for a one-year master’s degree at the University of Cambridge.
Join us on Tuesday, March 3rd for an unforgettable night at the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, brought to you by the Caltech Alpine Club! It’ll be a fun night of inspiring and exhilarating outdoor adventure films.
“I’m going on an adventure,” shouts Bilbo Baggins in the first moments of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, after accepting Gandalf’s request to join the dwarves. A huge Hobbit fan, I’d never given the line much thought.
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.
In January 2011, several academics attended the “Mindshift Conference,” organized by Al Seckel (who has been accused of misrepresenting his credentials) and hosted by a financier and convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein. The Nobel laureates include Professor Frances Arnold of Caltech and the late Murray Gell-Mann.
