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- President of the Space & Mission Systems sector at BAE Systems, Inc.
Dave Kaufman
Dave Kaufman (MS '90, PhD '95, mechanical engineering) is a testament to the power of saying "yes" to unexpected opportunities. Kaufman began his career as a thermal engineer, but his willingness to go "off script" has led him to his current role as President of the Space & Mission Systems sector at BAE Systems, Inc. Along with his three-decade industry career, Kaufman has been awarded two patents for his research and development work and is an Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
- Chief Commercial Officer, Refinery Calculator, Inc.
Lori McDowell
Lori McDowell (MS '88, environmental engineering) has navigated through diverse roles in her career, from research and development to business development, but she has recently embarked on a new path. Currently, McDowell serves as the Chief Commercial Officer for Refinery Calculator, Inc. an energy data company, while also leading Reimagine U Strategies, the coaching and speaking company she founded aimed at helping individuals lead more joyful and fulfilling lives. McDowell's focus lies in helping people recognize and overcome obstacles that hinder their progress, promoting what she terms a "Reinvention Mindset," which is also the title of her forthcoming book.
- Founder and CEO, MightyMeld
Steven Schkolne
Steven Schkolne (MS '99, PhD '04, Computer Science) has been fascinated by computers long before they became mainstream. His early experiences with programming and video games have fueled a career that successfully integrates art, design, and mathematics. As the founder and CEO of MightyMeld, a visualization and creation platform for web applications, Schkolne's pioneering work has solidified his reputation as a leading figure at the intersection of technology and creativity. Additionally, Schkolne's PhD research led to the first fully functional drawing programs for virtual reality, establishing him as one of the foremost experts in 3D interface design worldwide.
- Fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
John Kitching
For John Kitching (MS '92, PhD '95, applied physics), keeping time is not just a necessity for daily life; it's his passion and career focus. Kitching holds several patents in the areas of spectroscopy and quantum systems, and his ground-breaking inventions of the chip-scale atomic clock and chip-scale atomic magnetometer earned him recognition as a 2022 Fellow of both the National Academy of Inventors and IEEE.
- AMA Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Penn University
Ottman Tertuliano
From West Africa to the West Coast, Ottman Tertuliano's (MS '15, PhD '19) journey in materials science has brought him to the intersection of nanoscience, biomechanics, and biology. Now the AMA Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics at Penn University, Tertuliano's research group explores how mechanics can combine with biology, leading to enhanced outcomes for musculoskeletal diseases and tissue engineering.
- Co-Head of AI, Virtualitics
Aakash Indurkhya
Aakash Indurkhya (BS '16) is a trailblazer in the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence (AI), which continues to spark conversations (and heated debate) in the scientific and political realms. As the co-head of AI at Virtualitics, a Pasadena-based advanced analytics company, Indurkhya is focused on ways to make AI for analytics more effective, ethical, and relevant for real-world use cases.
- Associate Professor of Materials Science and Radiology, Stanford
Jen Dionne
Jennifer (Jen) Dionne (PhD '09) channels the principles of nanophotonics to engineer new solutions for global health and sustainability. Growing up in Rhode Island, her inspiration to pursue science came from watching the X-Files, where she saw how interdisciplinary teamwork could tackle unsolved mysteries. Currently an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Radiology at Stanford, Dionne's research is focused on creating impactful and innovative solutions for growing existential threats, like antimicrobial resistance. Outside of her research group, Dionne also served as the Senior Associate Vice Provost for research platforms/shared facilities at Stanford, a role informed by her involvement with Caltech's Kavli Nanoscience Institute (KNI), and is currently co-founder of Pumpkinseed and Deputy Director of a DOE National Quantum Science Center, Q-NEXT.
- General Manager of Robotics and Autonomy, Microsoft
Tim Chung
Tim Chung's (MS '02, PhD '07) growth as a robotics enthusiast and innovator, from his early days working with soccer-playing robots to his revitalization of robotics at Microsoft, is a testament to the power of interdisciplinary learning and curiosity. Fueled by a Caltech background without departmental boundaries, Chung's foray into the field of robotics has furthered the frontier both above and below, from controlling robot swarms in intricate urban situations to improving search and rescue operations in underground locations.
- Edwin H. & Florence G. Skinner Professor of Electrical & Systems Engineering, Washington University in St. Louis
Lan Yang
From fearlessly entering new fields of science to her passion for science fiction, Lan Yang (MS '00, PhD '05) loves exploring the unknown. Growing up in China, Yang was inspired by the life of Marie Curie, who's groundbreaking work altered medicine and our understanding of radioactivity. Along with her role at Washington University in St. Louis, Yang is also the chief technology officer (CTO) for a company she helped to found and the editor-in-chief of a science journal. Through these positions, Yang continues to pursue the unknown and grow the science community.
- Head Of the School of Physics and Astronomy, Monash University
Stefan Maier
Stefan Maier (PhD '03) has established a strong track record in community building, from Imperial College London to his current role as the Head of the School of Physics and Astronomy at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. His mentorship has had a global academic impact, with over 21 members of his various research groups now holding academic positions. As a researcher, Maier has also made significant contributions to the field of nanophotonics, most notably the use of light together with nanostructures to control and enhance light matter interactions in biosensing and optoelectronics.
- Assistant Professor of Aerospace
Jane Bae
Professor Bae's research focuses on the physical understanding and modeling of structures associated with near-wall turbulence. Her main research goal is to develop high-fidelity models that reduce the computational cost to simulate high-Reynolds-number turbulent flows. These models will allow simulations to be utilized in the design cycle of wind farms and aircrafts and in predictions of atmospheric flows, reducing the overall time and effort associated with these processes.
- Georgia will join Caltech in January 2023.
Georgia Gkioxari
Georgia's research focuses on machine vision, namely teaching machines to see. Her work explores methods for learning from visual corpora to tackle challenging visual tasks with scalable, efficient and generalizable solutions. Georgia's research is centered around object recognition from images and videos as well as object tracking and 3D understanding.
- Assistant Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Economics
Eric Mazumdar
Eric Mazumdar's research lies at the intersection of machine learning and economics. He is broadly interested in developing the tools and understanding necessary to confidently deploy machine learning algorithms into societal-scale systems.
- Assistant Professor of Materials Science; William H. Hurt Scholar
Joseph Falson
Joseph Falson's research focuses on the synthesis and characterization of quantum materials that display emergent functionalities. The group specializes in the thin-film growth of high quality crystals and their physical evaluation in extreme environments, including at low temperature and high magnetic field.
- Assistant Professor of Mechanical and Civil Engineering
Ruby Fu
Ruby Fu studies subsurface fluid mechanics and how they shape our natural and engineered environments. Her work is applied to a wide range of geoscience problems in energy, resources and geohazards. Her current interests include clathrate and ice formation in porous media, hydrology, geologic carbon sequestration, and volcanic/geothermal systems.
- Assistant Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences; Nickerson Scholar
Urmila Mahadev
Mahadev's broad theme of research is in cryptographic possibilities of quantum information, a topic of considerable interest in the field. She has built new quantum cryptographic primitives by adapting and extending techniques from modern classical cryptography and has pioneered two widely acclaimed fundamental breakthroughs: 1) Quantum homomorphic encryption (i.e., computing on encrypted data) and 2) Verifiable delegation of quantum computation. Mahadev plans to focus her future research efforts on exploring problems in the intersection of theoretical computer science and quantum computing.
- Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics
Mohammad Mirhosseini
Mohammad Mirhosseini is an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics, and previously was a KNI postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. In the past he has worked on entangling distant transmon qubits via microwave waveguides and developed integrated devices for microwave-to-optical quantum transduction. Mohammad did his PhD in the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester. His thesis work was on high-capacity quantum communication with structured photons.
- Research Professor of Aerospace and Applied Physics
John Sader
John Sader joins EAS as a Research Professor of Aerospace and Applied Physics from the University of Melbourne, where he was Professor of Applied Mathematics. John’s research spans many fields, including fluid mechanics, colloid science, plasmonics, mass spectrometry and atomic force microscopy, and he collaborates broadly with experimentalists across the world. John is perhaps best known for developing experimental methods in atomic force microscopy. He has been a regular visitor to Caltech since 2009 and has collaborated with many groups across EAS on nanoelectromechanical systems for mass spectrometry, rarefied gas dynamics, fluid-structure interactions of flags, shape morphing mechanical structures, dynamic stability of thin elastic films for space deployment, and the vortex dynamics of start-up flows. John is an elected fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Australasian Fluid Mechanics Society, and the Australian Mathematical Society. His office is in the Firestone Laboratory.
- Assistant Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering
Smruthi Karthikeyan
Dr. Karthikeyan's research interests lie at the interface of microbial ecology, computational biology and engineering. She builds predictive models that integrate physicochemical and transport data with multi-omic (DNA, RNA and metabolome-level) data to make accurate predictions of microbial community responses to environmental perturbations. (Karthikeyan joins Caltech in Jan 2023)
- Franca will join Caltech in Fall 2022
Franca Hoffmann
Franca Hoffmann's research is focused on the interface between applied mathematics and data analysis, driven by the need to provide rigorous mathematical foundations for modeling tools used in applications.
- Postdoctoral Scholar, Mechanical and Civil Engineering
Pio Ong
I have been at Caltech for two years under the supervision of Professor Aaron Ames. My research focus is on the intelligent resource-aware control for nonlinear systems, with the goal of reducing resource usage in autonomous systems. Currently, I study resource-constrained control systems and formulate control policies to reduce the frequency of resource-consuming control actions. For example, I use nonlinear control theory to analyze and formulate event-triggered designs for satellites to reduce the number of thruster firings. In addition to this exciting research, Caltech also provided me with the opportunity to instruct an undergraduate course as a lecturer. I really enjoyed the teaching experience and the freedom to craft my own syllabus in the way I believed would best benefit students. Outside of my career, I enjoy listening to K-Pop music, watching math videos, and playing chess/Go.
- Graduate Student, GALCIT
Divesh Soni
Hello everyone! I am Divesh, currently a 3rd year graduate student in Professor Sergio Pellegrino’s lab. I am doing my PhD in Space Engineering. Before joining Caltech, I worked as a scientist at the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). In ISRO, I worked on structural design and analysis of solar arrays, reflectors, and other spacecraft appendages. I was always surprised about how things would almost never behave as they should in experiments. This made learning pleasurable and as exciting as solving a puzzle. Here at Caltech, I am working on understanding slew maneuvers of spacecrafts with large lightweight flexible structures relevant to the Space Solar Power Project. When not working on my research, I tend to drift away to the mountains, hiking and enjoying the burst of fresh air. I am grateful for the opportunities here at Caltech and the way I am challenged every day makes me feel alive!
- Postdoc, Computing and Mathematical Sciences
Xingxing Zuo
Before joining Caltech as a postdoc in January 2024, I had the pleasure of working as a full-time research scientist at Google. My academic journey led me to get my doctoral degree from Zhejiang University, China, in 2021, followed by a Postdoc position at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) from 2021 to 2023. My research interests are centered around robotic perception and 3D computer vision. I am passionate about advancing the perceptual and spatial intelligence of mobile robots by harnessing the potential of combining data-driven deep neural networks with the principles of state estimation. My long-term aspiration is to empower robots with human-level perception and intelligence. At Caltech, I am fortunate to be co-advised by two distinguished professors: Professor Soon-Jo Chung, an expert in the field of robotics, and Professor Georgia Gkioxari, a renowned figure in computer vision. I am eagerly looking forward to engaging with the fantastic research opportunities that lie ahead and contributing to the vibrant scientific community at Caltech.
- Graduate Student, Mechanical and Civil Engineering
Emily de Jong
I moved to Caltech from Princeton University in 2019, excited and nervous to enter the world of mechanical engineering and fluid mechanics after my ChemE undergraduate degree. Ultimately, I found myself studying very small-scale phenomena in the atmosphere—the liquid water and ice particles that make up a cloud, which are inherently challenging to model, yet crucial to Earth's climate and weather. I have always been interested in the dynamics and mathematics of complex physical systems related to energy and the environment, and learning and applying new mathematical and modeling techniques. Cloud microphysics has been the perfect topic to satisfy this curiosity while also contributing to our understanding of changes and feedback in the atmosphere in future climate scenarios. When I'm not deriving, coding, or writing at my desk, I go outside for "observational fieldwork," observing real clouds from a distance on my bicycling, climbing, and hiking adventures in the mountains.
- Graduate Student, Computing and Mathematical Sciences
Jiaqing Jiang
Hi there! I am a G3 in CMS. I am broadly interested in quantum information, especially in quantum algorithms and quantum complexity. Recently, I have become interested in finding potential quantum advantages for the local Hamiltonian problem, which is one of the most promising applications of quantum computers and is related to quantum chemistry and condensed matter physics. I also like solving math problems just for fun, purely enjoying the feeling of keeping focus. Before I came to Caltech, I obtained my master’s degree at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in computer science, and my bachelor's degree at Nankai University in Mathematics. Outside of research, I like playing games, reading books, hiking, and listening to music. I have also recently started learning guitar.
- Graduate Student, GALCIT
Michael Stramenga
I am a fourth-year Space Engineering PhD student in the Caltech Hypersonics Group under the guidance of Professor Joanna Austin. I received my BE in Mechanical Engineering and Management at McMaster University in 2020 before joining the Caltech community. My research involves running experiments in hypersonic flows that replicate the extreme environments spacecraft are exposed to as they reenter Earth's atmosphere. I conduct my experiments in Caltech’s T5 Reflected Shock Tunnel, which can produce freestream velocities up to 5 km/s! The data I collect from my experiments is used to improve predictive capabilities for hypersonic flight, leading to the design of safer spacecraft. Outside of lab, I enjoy playing guitar, skiing, scuba diving, and training towards my private pilot license. Having grown up in Canada, I also enjoy playing ice hockey if anyone wants to get a Caltech team started.
- Undergraduate Student, Computing and Mathematical Sciences
Alice Cheng
Hi! My areas of interest include observational astronomy/instrumentation and the intersection between astronomy and computer science. Through Caltech’s astrophysics program, I’ve had the opportunity to image galaxies and study variability of active galactic nuclei using the telescopes at Palomar Observatory. Through Caltech’s SURF program, I was able to travel to Copenhagen and work with the Cosmic Dawn Center to write an emulator for a popular software used by researchers to model interstellar clouds. On the computer science side, I’m curious about human-computer interaction and how it can be used to enhance access to resources, like education and medical care, across the world. At Caltech, I co-founded Product @ Caltech with fellow students, an organization which aims to introduce members of the Caltech community to product management via industry speakers, hands-on experience with start-ups, and skill workshops. I am also the treasurer of Caltech Dance Club, which hosts weekly dance classes on campus. After graduating, I hope to continue teaching, whether it is in an academic setting or as a mentor in industry. When I’m not too busy, you can find me learning new languages, dancing, playing with cats, or cooking.
- Fulbright Visiting Researcher, Mechanical and Civil Engineering
Isabella Fiorello
My name is Isabella Fiorello, and I'm a Principal Investigator of the Bioinspired Plant-hybrid Materials group at the Cluster of Excellence livMatS of the University of Freiburg (Germany). I received a master’s degree in industrial biotechnology (with honors) from the University of Turin (Italy) in 2017 and a PhD in biorobotics (with honors) from Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna (Pisa, Italy) in 2021. From 2021 to 2023, I worked as a Postdoc in the Bioinspired Soft Robotics Laboratory of the Italian Institute of Technology (Genoa, Italy). Since October 2023, I have been a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in the group of Prof. Chiara Daraio. During my scientific career, I received different grants and awards, such as the Young Researcher of the Year - ENI Award 2022 and the Early Career National Geographic Grant. My research aims at the development of biologically-inspired microfabricated living machines able to precisely interact with complex unstructured surfaces for applications in precision agriculture, space exploration, and soft robotics.
- Graduate Student, Mechanical and Civil Engineering
Yaozhong Shi
I am a fourth-year graduate student in Mechanical Engineering, collaborating with Professor Domniki Asimaki and Zachary E. Ross. My research focuses on understanding the statistics of earthquakes, a task that involves combining domain knowledge, applied mathematics, and machine learning. I am dedicated to developing practical tools for processing earthquake signals, characterizing ground shaking during earthquakes, and unraveling the spatio-temporal distribution of earthquake events. My fascination with earthquakes goes beyond academic interest; I am deeply intrigued by their significant impact on our world. This fascination fuels my commitment to contributing to a safer and more resilient society through my research. Outside the office, my hobbies include hiking and swimming. As I continue my journey at Caltech, I am eager to share my experiences and insights with the community. I look forward to engaging in collaborations, learning from others, and contributing to the rich tapestry of knowledge and innovation at this esteemed institution.
- Undergraduate Student, Environmental Science and Engineering
Tyler Fox
I am a 4th-year undergraduate studying economics, BEM (business, economics, and management), and environmental science and engineering. I am passionate about the intersection of finance and sustainability, and using finance as a tool to drive sustainable development and transition across the globe. In pursuit of this, after Caltech, I will be in New York City working as an investment banking analyst at Guggenheim Securities as part of the Sustainability and Energy Transition Team. At Caltech, I am captain of the women’s water polo team and I am also Fleming House Secretary. In my free time, I love exploring the diverse and beautiful nature California offers from hikes in the San Gabriel mountains to swimming at the beach to exploring national parks like Joshua Tree.