Techer 2015

TEC H Caltech Alumni Annual 2015

2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS

“No other company can approach the sheer scale and diversity of research interests that Bell Labs pursued. And through a number of very talented individuals...Caltech made its mark on Bell Labs.”

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06 PIONEERING

8 | THE LONG VIEW

France Córdova (PhD ’79) looks back on a career that led her to the director’s office of the National Science Foundation.

14 | KNOWING THE VOTE

How Erin Hartman (BS ’07) changed the process of predicting elections.

16 | A NOBEL STREAK

Eric Betzig (BS ’83) and Arthur McDonald (PhD ’70) join the ranks of Caltech Nobelists.

19 | FRIEND OF THE COURT before the Supreme Court.

Will Peterson (BS ’02) argues

20 AUDACIOUS

22 | THE IMPOSSIBLE ROCK

Quasicrystals were not supposed to exist naturally. Paul Steinhardt (BS ’74) led a global search to find one.

30 | GOING VIRAL

Rumi Chunara (BS ’04) harnesses social media and other new tools to track the outbreak of disease.

32 TRANSFORMING 34 | THE 2015 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS

For much of the 20th century, Bell Laboratories was one of the most innovative scientific organizations in the world. But how did Caltech impact Bell Labs?

42 | QUANTUM HOOP DREAMS

Why they call Dean Oliver (BS ’90) the father of modern basketball analytics.

44 | LOOKING FOR E.T.

Fifty years into the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, and there are still no signs. Seth Shostak (PhD ’72) asks: What’s up with that?

46 | RETHINKING THE BUILDING BLOCK

“I think that when someone says ‘impossible,’ I always want to know: Do you mean it violates the laws of physics? Or do you mean that it would be very, very interesting?”

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Two Caltech alumni challenge traditional ideas of what a toy is, whom it’s made for, and how it can inspire.

48 ORIGINAL 50 | LEGENDS: WHEN YOU’RE HOT, YOU’RE HOT 51 | THE STACK 52 | CALTECH ACROSS THE COUNTRY 54 | CLASS NOTES 56 | IN MEMORIAM TECHER

Clockwise from left: Zohar Lazar; Courtesy AT&T Archives and History Center; Stephen Voss

39 | CALTECH AND THE FACTORY OF IDEAS

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“Our own experiences inform the questions that drive scientific discovery. We are richer for the diversity of our culture, knowledge, and viewpoints.�

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alumni.caltech.edu

Caltech Alumni Annual

2015

CONTRIBUTORS

LAURA BARISONZI is a New York–based photographer who strives to capture natural action and genuine emotion. Her clients include Boston Magazine, Forbes, The Guardian, Harvard Business School, and Rolling Stone. She is inspired by the new places her work takes her and the people she meets.

COVER

Editor BEN TOMLIN Contributing Writers JENNIFER BLANKENSHIP, LORI DAJOSE (BS ’14), LEE FISHER (BS ’78), SETH SHOSTAK (PHD ’72) , DOUGLAS SMITH, KATHY SVITIL, MARCUS WOO Contributing Editor DAN MORRELL Copy Editor CAROLYN WALDRON Photography LAURA BARISONZI, DANNY GHITIS, MACIEK JASIK, MATTHEW MAHON, STEPHEN VOSS Illustration ALVARO DOMINGUEZ, ZOHAR LAZAR, PIERLUIGI LONGO, JULIEN PACAUD, CHRIS PHILPOT, QUICKHONEY, DANA VERKOUTEREN Design EMDASH

JULIEN PACAUD 2

is a French artist and illustrator, living and working in Paris.

Before becoming an illustrator, he was, by turns: an astrophysicist, an international snooker player, a hypnotist, and an esperanto teacher. Pacaud’s work has appeared in The New York Times, Wired, Vanity Fair, Dwell, and The New Yorker. He hopes he can someday have enough free time to devote himself to his real passion: time travel.

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CALTECH ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS (2015-16) LEE FISHER (BS ‘78, RUDDOCK HOUSE) President DAVE TYTELL (BS ‘99, BLACKER HOUSE) Vice President PHIL NAECKER (BS ‘76, FLEMING HOUSE) Treasurer MICHELLE ARMOND (BS ’00) Secretary SAM FOSTER (BS ‘98, BLACKER HOUSE) Past President

SETH SHOSTAK (PHD ’72)

is a senior astronomer and director at the Center for SETI Research and a widely published author and advocate for science. Shostak has authored four books and published more than 400 popular articles on science that have appeared in a number of publications including The New York Times, Discover magazine, and the Huffington Post.

He is also the host of the SETI Institute’s weekly science radio show, “Big Picture Science.”

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STEPHEN VOSS is widely known for his portraits of political luminaries.

Voss’s work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio, Wired, and The Guardian. His portrait of Bernie Sanders graced the cover of Time in September.

Among his favorite accomplishments was making Mikhail Gorbachev laugh during a portrait session by asking him to look “very strong.”

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CÉSAR BOCANEGRA (BS ‘95, FLEMING HOUSE) CHRIS BRYANT (BS ‘95, RUDDOCK HOUSE) JASMINE BRYANT (BS ‘95, RUDDOCK HOUSE) MILTON CHANG (MS ‘65, PHD ‘69) ANTHONY CHONG (BS ‘10, RUDDOCK HOUSE) LAURA CONWILL (BS ‘12, LLOYD HOUSE) MEGAN GREENFIELD (BS ‘04, LLOYD HOUSE) KEITH KARASEK (BS ‘74, LLOYD HOUSE) KENT NOBLE (BS ‘87, PAGE HOUSE) STEPHEN O’CONNOR (PHD ‘95) SATOSHI OHTAKE (BS ‘00, RUDDOCK HOUSE) NICOLA PEILL-MOELTER (MS ‘93, PHD ‘97) ANNEILA SARGENT (MS ‘67, PHD ‘77)

CALTECH ALUMNI RELATIONS ALEXX TOBECK Executive Director, Caltech Alumni Association and Director, Alumni Relations PATSY GOUGEON Associate Director PHIL SCANLON Associate Director BEN TOMLIN Associate Director, Communications LISA UNANGST Manager, Student Engagement and Alumni Programs SHERRY WINN Coordinator

TECHER

FROM THE PRESIDENT of the Caltech Alumni Association

THE TECHER OF TODAY To an outsider, the word may sound unusual. Perhaps it’s the hard consonants, the

hint that it sounds of the early industrial era, or the fact that out in the world, it is rarely used. To those within the community, however, it is a familial term with a simple meaning...Techer: One who attends or has attended Caltech.

Older alumni might remember it as “Techman” from a time when the campus body was all-male and Caltech was more commonly referred to as C.I.T., when the focus of work tilted more toward engineering, and when the yearbook earned its name, The Big T. With the arrival of undergraduate women in 1970, the term was rightfully altered to become more inclusionary. In the decades since, you will find Techer threaded throughout Caltech’s literature, mentioned in student publications, admissions brochures, and official reports.

This year, as we assembled our annual collection of alumni stories, we became intrigued by the word. We asked ourselves, “Who is the Techer of today?” A straightforward question, but one with a surprising myriad of answers.

Do all Techers work in technology? Clearly not. In addition to technology, Caltech alumni pursue the full spectrum of pure theoretical science, engineering, and mathematics.

And some graduates switch paths to pursue fields outside the sciences altogether. Does the word apply only to undergraduates? The evidence of its use suggests that all attendees of the Institute can lay claim to it. But you will rarely hear it referenced in conversations with those who did not attend. In a sense, it is a bit like a secret handshake. Those who know…know.

So if both the word—and the world—have evolved, how do we describe the modern Techer? As we delved deeper into your stories, we found these common and timeless themes:

Techers are pioneering. Caltech alumni venture into,

and sometimes define, entirely new fields. You seek out the challenges for which a solution is neither textbook nor obvious. The opportunity to “know something before anyone else” is one of the most thrilling aspects of intellectual exploration for you.

Techers are audacious. Time and again, Caltech alumni demonstrate tremendous intellectual bravery, chasing highrisk, high-reward endeavors. From building subterranean structures in order to observe neutrinos, to changing the way political campaigns work, to providing new insights into the NBA—you question everything.

Techers are transforming. There is abundant evidence

of the impact that Caltech alumni have upon the world.

Nearly every aspect of our modern society has been aided by the discoveries and innovations developed by the Institute’s graduates. No matter how large or small the size of the challenge, you propose solutions that defy expectations. alumni.caltech.edu

Techers are original. Caltech alumni look at the world

differently, and with surprising degrees of diversity. Just as the paths that led you to campus are unique, so too are the courses you chart after graduation. Equipped by the training you received at Caltech, you are able to put your unique point of view into action.

These represent just some of the ways that you, through your endeavors and achievements, continue to define what it means to be a Techer today.

Inspired by your stories, we took another look at the book that houses them. This is a space to introduce you to and acquaint you with one another. As an annual, we gave it a bit more room and made it a bit more conversational, meant to be perused at leisure and shared with fellow alumni. There is science here—but, to be clear—this is not a book about science.

This is a book about people, and not just any people: It is resolutely devoted to stories about Caltech alumni, made possible

by Caltech alumni, delivered in print to all Caltech alumni.

It seems fitting, then, that your alumni annual should bear a familiar name. We hope that you enjoy this year’s issue of Techer.

Lee Fisher (BS ’78) PRESIDENT Caltech Alumni Association

ON THE COVER RUMI CHUNARA (BS ’04) uses mobile Internet-based systems to track infectious disease in real time. See p. 30.

PHOTO BY L AURA BARISONZI

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“Inspired by your stories, we took another look at the book that houses them.

This is a space to introduce you to and acquaint you with one another.”

The story does not end here, To however. get involved, go to: alumni.caltech.edu/join We invite you to grow your involvement with fellow alumni, personally and professionally. Join us at one of our regional events, seek out or offer career advice in one of our curated LinkedIn communities, or host a small dinner in your area...the ways to connect are limitless. Together, we can continue to build a stronger Caltech Alumni Association.

TO G E T I N V O LV E D , G O TO : A L U M N I . C A LT E C H . E D U / J O I N

[ 2015 Year in Review ]

CAMPUS HIGHLIGHTS JANUARY

FEBRUARY

[ FEBRUARY 4 ]

[ FEBRUARY 9 ]

POTASSIUM SALT OUTPERFORMS PRECIOUS METALS AS A CATALYST A team of Caltech chemists announces the discovery of a method for producing a group of silicon-containing organic chemicals without relying on expensive precious-metal catalysts. Instead, the new technology uses potassium salt—a cheap, abundant chemical.

BASKETBALL TEAMS SCORE BEST SEASONS Caltech men’s and women’s teams score five combined Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference wins.

[ MARC H 18 ]

CALTECH SCIENTISTS DEVELOP COOL PROCESS TO MAKE BETTER GRAPHENE A new technique invented at Caltech to produce graphene—a material made up of an atom-thick layer of carbon—at room temperature could help pave the way for commercially feasible graphenebased solar cells and light-emitting diodes, large-panel displays, and flexible electronics.

MARC H

APRIL

4

MAY

[ MAY 11 ]

PENNIES FOR DITCH DAY When Caltech’s class of 2014 chose to donate a penny press as their senior class gift, they added one stipulation: Profits from the press can only be used to help students offset the cost of one of the Institute’s most famed traditions—Ditch Day.

[ MAY 17 ]

ATHLETICS HALL OF HONOR Six former athletes and one pioneering team are inducted into the Caltech Athletics Hall of Honor: Manny Bass (BS ’49, MS ’51), Bruce Chesebro (BS ’63), Karen Close Tanaka (BS ’83), Henry DeWitt (BS ’68), Alan Kleinsasser (BS ’74), Howell Tyson (BS ’50), and the 1971–72 women’s fencing team.

[ JUNE 1 ]

JUNE

JULY

HOWELL TYSON (BS ’50)

[ JUNE 12 ]

CALTECH’S 121ST COMMENCEMENT [ JULY 14–15]

[JULY 17]

50 YEARS IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory marks five decades of visual reconnaissance of the solar system, beginning with Mariner 4’s flyby of Mars in 1965.

PO-SHEN LOH LEADS MATH OLYMPIAD TO VICTORY For the first time in 21 years, the team from the United States wins International Mathematical Olympiad, under the guidance of head coach Po-Shen Loh (BS ‘04).

Caltech Athletics Sports Information; Jon Nalick; Lucas Meza (MS ’13) and Arturo Mateos (MS ’14); LIGO; Lance Hayashida

NEW, MODERNIZED SPACE FOR MCE Following a year of renovation, the Charles C. Gates Jr.–Franklin Thomas Laboratory opens. The building will house Caltech’s department of Mechanical and Civil Engineering and the administrative offices for the division of Engineering and Applied Science (EAS).

AUGUST [ SEPTEMBER 15 ]

SEPTEMBER

ADVANCED LIGO BEGINS OPERATIONS After seven years of enhancement, the Advanced LIGO Project, a major upgrade of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory begins scientific observations. LIGO was cofounded in 1992 by Caltech’s Kip Thorne (BS ’62) and Ronald Drever along with Rainer Weiss of MIT (see p. 37).

OCTOBER [ SEPTEMBER 1 ]

NOVEMBER

NANOLATTICES THAT BOUNCE BACK Researchers in the laboratory of Julia R. Greer, professor of materials science and mechanics, design a new kind of nanostructure that is stronger and bounces back with less damage after compression.

DECEMBER TECHER

[ FEBRUARY 20–MARC H1 ]

[ FEBRUARY 26 ]

ALICE THROUGH THE WORMHOLE Members of the Theater Arts Caltech (TACIT) reimagine Lewis Carroll’s tale as the journey of a grad student who gets transported through a wormhole to a universe you might find all too familiar.

“A lot has changed, but the core of Caltech and its students is all just as I remember.”

—MEL LEVET

[ MARC H 24 ]

JPL NEWS: CURIOSITY ROVER FINDS BIOLOGICALLY USEFUL NITROGEN ON MARS NASA announces that instruments aboard the Curiosity rover make the first detection of nitrogen on the surface of Mars. Nitrogen—essential for all forms of life—was released in the form of nitric oxide when samples of Martian sand, dust, and mudstone were heated.

[ APRIL 17–18 ]

THE SCIENCE OF DANCE Members of the Caltech community show off their dancing skills, from hip-hop to traditional Indian dance.

MEL LEVET (BS ‘39, MS ‘40) TOSSES FIRST PITCH AGAINST OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE Family, friends, and members of the Caltech community turn out to see 97-year-old Levet, who has not pitched a baseball in 65 years, start the game. “This has blossomed into a great day for Caltech baseball and for Caltech. We’re delighted to welcome Mel home,” said Matt Mark, the Beavers’ head baseball coach.

[ MAY 21 ]

CONTROLLING A ROBOTIC ARM WITH A PATIENT’S INTENTIONS By implanting neuroprosthetics in a part of the brain that controls not the movement directly but rather our intent to move, Caltech researchers have developed a way to allow patients with amputations or paralysis to control the movement of a robotic limb with more natural and fluid motions. [ APRIL 29 ]

NASA’S NUSTAR CAPTURES POSSIBLE ‘SCREAMS’ FROM ZOMBIE STARS ONE AT A TIME Peering into the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) reports spotting a mysterious glow of high-energy X-rays that, according to scientists, could be the “howls” of dead stars as they feed on stellar companions. [ JULY 26 ]

[ AUGUST 27 ]

Allison Maker (BS ’15); Michael L. Wong (MS ’14); Lance Hayashida/Caltech; Hoelz Laboratory/Caltech

CALTECH CHEMISTS SOLVE MAJOR PIECE OF CELLULAR MYSTERY Team learns atomic structure of “gatekeeper” to the nucleus, the heart of eukaryotic cells, where, among other things, genetic information is stored.

[ MAY 22 ]

DITCH DAY Tomorrow is today.

CRUSHED IT! The Caltech Robotics Team places fourth in the 18th Annual International RoboSub Competition, with its robot submarine— Crush. The challenge was to build a mechanical underwater vehicle that could autonomously navigate an obstacle course, completing tasks such as driving through a gate, bumping into colored buoys, and shooting torpedoes through holes. [ SEPTEMBER 3 ]

FARTHEST GALAXY DETECTED A team of Caltech researchers reports the detection of what may be the most distant galaxy ever found. The galaxy, EGSY8p7, is more than 13.2 billion years old. The universe itself is about 13.8 billion years old.

[ OCTOBER ]

THE CALTECH Y TURNS 100 Founded in 1915 , the Caltech Y celebrates its 100th anniversary as an organization dedicated to helping students emerge as engaged citizens of the world.

alumni.caltech.edu

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Strata at the Base of Mount Sharp A view from the “Kimberley” formation on Mars taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover. The strata in the foreground slopes in the direction of the base of Mount Sharp, indicating flow of water toward a basin that existed before the larger bulk of the mountain formed. This image was taken by the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on Curiosity on the 580th Martian day, or sol, of the mission. The colors are adjusted so that rocks look approximately as they would if they were on Earth, to help geologists interpret the rocks.

PHOTO : JPL TECHER

PIONEERING

alumni.caltech.edu

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[ Pioneering ] CONVERSATION

THE LONG 8

VIEW

STRAIGHT LINE TO THE CAPITOL France Cรณrdova at her apartment in Washington, D.C., overlooking Arlington National Cemetary and the National Mall.

TECHER

An accomplished scientist and leader FR ANCE C ÓRDOVA (PHD ’79)

brings a lifetime of experience to her role as the director of the National Science Foundation, defying expectations, placing big bets, and always keeping an eye toward the future.

PHOTO BY STEPHEN VOSS

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alumni.caltech.edu

[ Pioneering ] CONVERSATION

In 2014, France Córdova (PhD ’79) was confirmed as the 14th director of the National Science Foundation, the culmination of more than three decades in science, technology, and academic leadership roles. We spoke with the Distinguished Alumna (’07) about her remarkable career, the advancement of women in academia, and her enthusiasm for the future of science.

How did you first become interested in science?

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Growing up, I was always fascinated by science. In high school, I remember learning that Charlie Townes (PhD ’39) had invented the maser. I was riveted. But there was no encouragement in my family or mentorship from my teachers to pursue a career in science. In fact, my mother expected that I would get what she called an MRS degree: Meet somebody, get married, and raise the children. That was just the expectation of the times.

Despite that interest, you initially earned your degree at Stanford in English, then pursued a career in journalism.

Well, I don’t know if I pursued it very hard. It’s true that in addition to science, I also loved literature, drama, debate... everything, really. I chose to study English at Stanford, perhaps to have a more flexible undergraduate degree. And like most English majors, I harbored aspirations to become a distinguished writer, so I went to the LA Times. I didn’t call ahead; I just walked in with my little writing portfolio. The manager, perhaps amused at this kid coming in off the street, said the only opening they had was as a copy girl. I’ve always believed that you should just get your foot in the door, so I said, “Of course, yeah, any job.” I soon covered some minor young actors and singers, nobody too famous. Eventually, though, I became restless and decided that I really wanted to pursue my first passion—to become a scientist.

Your entry to Caltech wasn’t exactly the typical path. How did you get started?

I found my way to Gordon Garmire, a physicist who is best known for his work in high-energy astronomy instrumentation and the diffuse X-ray background. He gave me a job, not as a graduate student but writing computer programs to analyze data. Once again, if it meant getting my foot in the door, I said yes. Then I asked if I could audit courses. I did all the required tests, was graded, and—I think to the surprise of the faculty—did really well. So they decided to admit me as a graduate student in physics.

Caltech was a rigorous, collaborative, and fun environment. As graduate students, you were able to learn from and work right alongside all of these incredible minds, like theoretical physicists Murray Gell-Mann and Richard Feynman. You take it for granted when you’re a student. There was also an experimental, bootstrap, hands-on atmosphere. I

remember once nearly electrocuting myself at White Sands while scaling up the framework of a rocket in the middle of a lightning storm, all to put some duct tape on an instrument.

I have a feeling they wouldn’t allow that now, but that was the kind of place Caltech was. You could do theoretical work and also get your hands involved with experimentation.

While working on your thesis at Caltech, you famously repositioned a satellite to observe a star system for X-rays. This seems like a big gamble for a young researcher. What led you to take the chance?

Under Garmire, I was researching binary systems. Scientists had long hypothesized that when two stellar bodies are in close proximity, there is often an exchange of matter. For example, a small star might transfer matter episodically onto a companion white-dwarf star. As the matter accretes onto the dwarf, it can lead to a visible brightening or even, over time, an explosive event, such as a collapse to form a neutron star.

These visible “outbursts” had been observed since the 1850s, well before anyone knew what they were. There were more recent predictions that they would have X-ray emissions.

We wanted to be able to detect that, but you had to catch the brightening at the rare moment of mass transfer.

One morning I got a call from an amateur astronomer based in Prescott, Arizona, informing me that a system was going into outburst. I immediately ran to Garmire to ask if we could point a satellite, the High Energy Astronomical Observatory (HEAO-1), at the event.

He said, “Well, that’s a costly thing to do. Are you sure that you’re going to see something?” I said, “Yes. Absolutely. It will be transformational.” What else could I say?

I had done my homework and was pretty sure, but I also could have been wrong. Garmire picked up the phone, called the Goddard Space Flight Center, and we repositioned the satellite.

I had to wait a couple of days to get the tape, then I went to the batch computer center on campus to process it. When the data came out…there was just a huge signal. Absolutely unmistakable. I ran over to the basement of the Athenaeum, where grad students met to drink beer and have popcorn, to find one of my colleagues. I was delirious. I needed someone to see it, to confirm what I was looking at.

It was one of those thrilling moments when you have a theory, you gamble on an experiment, and the evidence just comes through.

TECHER

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At home, my mother listened to me rattle on about it. She smiled, put her arm around me, and said, “France, I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, but I know it’s very important. Congratulations.”

Photo: Courtesy of the Penn State University Archives

At a time when most graduates went on to postdoc work at other universities, you began your career at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Why did you choose that route?

Los Alamos offered a full staff position to work on basic research, as opposed to a shorter-term assignment. I felt that would afford me the time to really delve deeply into my subjects—and it did. During 10 wonderful years there, I worked on a number of projects, published a good deal, and served on various national committees. I also met my husband, and we had our two children. A decade later, in 1989, Garmire, who had moved to Pennsylvania State University, called with an offer to lead the school’s astronomy department. He asked, “Are you done having fun out there? Ready to get to work?” I laughed and said, “No, but I’ll see if I can have fun working at Penn State.” That really marked my transition from pure research into administration.

In 1993, you left Penn State to become the first woman and the youngest chief scientist at NASA. What was your role?

I served as a bridge between scientists and the administration. As many who work at Caltech and JPL know, missions in space require an enormous investment in capital and time, so it’s essential to rigorously align priorities with alumni.caltech.edu

resources. We can send a rocket into space, sure—but to do what? What do we want to know? NASA’s administrator at the time, Daniel Goldin, wanted the missions to be informed by the most pressing scientific questions. The bulk of the scientists who work on space are not inside of NASA, they’re distributed among the nation’s universities, labs, and other research institutes. My role was to bring leading scientists into direct dialogue with NASA’s senior leaders to help provide clarity and vision to missions. I think that my experience at Caltech, where scientists blend closely with engineers at JPL, helped me greatly.

Since NASA, your career has been defined by a succession of leadership positions at universities.

How do you see the role of universities evolving today in scientific research and education?

Universities have always been incredibly important to the ecology of science and engineering in this country. They are the places where you have a concentration of intellect, a culture of collaboration, and the freedom to create on a scale that is difficult to conceive happening anywhere else.

That is why I have been proud to spend the bulk of my career advocating to advance resources and opportunities for universities. Each university is unique in terms of culture, aspirations, and challenges.

As vice-chancellor for research at the University of California in Santa Barbara, I worked to establish an experimental fund to foster interdisciplinary research across the campus. Hard to imagine today, but the idea of cross-departmental collaboration was still a new idea at the time. Now

RISING STAR Córdova led the department of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State from 1989 to 1993 (where she is pictured teaching, above). She then became the youngest person and first woman to hold the position of NASA chief scientist.

[ Pioneering ] CONVERSATION

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“Our own experiences inform the questions that drive scientific discovery. We are richer for the diversity of our culture, knowledge, and viewpoints.”

What do you feel contributed to your success?

I can’t say there was ever a strategy. Part of it was that when an opportunity came, I wasn’t afraid of it. I never considered a lack of experience to be a serious obstacle. If you’re going to a job that has bigger authority, you almost never have all the required experience.

I’ve never felt that I deserved something. Rather, I consider it a privilege to be a part of the various universities and federal agencies that I’ve served, and to be able to contribute to the culture of science and engineering.

What is your sense of the progress women and minorities have made in sciencerelated careers?

There is no question that diversity is a critical driver of success in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics] in the 21st century. Science and engineering certainly affect culture, but it’s also a two-way street; our own experiences inform the questions that drive scientific

discovery. We are richer for the diversity of our culture, knowledge, and viewpoints.

Each year, the National Science Foundation publishes a report on underrepresented groups in science and engineering, including women, minorities, and persons with disabilities. I think the data show that things are progressing, but it’s also clear that we still have a great deal of work to do.

This year, I directed the launch of a new comprehensive national initiative, called NSF INCLUDES, to increase the advancement of all scientists and engineers, including those with backgrounds who may have been traditionally underserved. The goal is to identify and implement programs that are able to really move the needle in broadening the participation of all groups in the sciences.

I often talk to women about their careers and opportunities.

When I find someone hesitant at a big jump, perhaps saying, “No, I don’t know if I can do that,” I encourage them to still try.

You have to trust your experience, understand your strengths, and rely on other people to help out. You’ll broaden your opportunities and might actually have fun.

How do we best support and encourage the next generation of scientists and their research?

I’m always surprised and delighted by the ways in which we expand our understanding. Whether we’re contemplating the first moments of the universe, the fundamentals of life here on Earth, personalized medicine, or the capability of the phone in your pocket—science continues to transform our lives on a daily basis.

I’m often asked what the next big thing will be. We don’t have a crystal ball, and I don’t think it’s our place to prescribe or direct. I view the role of the NSF as a listening agency. We listen carefully for where the heart is beating faster among our potential grantees and then invest accordingly. So perhaps the better question is: Where does your pulse quicken? Where do you think the next big thing will be?

TECHER

Photo: Ken Shipp, U.S. Department of Energy

GLOBAL SCIENCE Córdova (right) at the signing in May of this year of an agreement for renewed cooperation between the U.S. and the European Laboratory for Nuclear Research (CERN), with Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz (left) and CERN Director-General Rolf-Dieter Heuer (center).

it’s increasingly a standard practice at major universities.

As chancellor of UC Riverside, I initiated the foundation to develop a medical school. When it opened in 2010, it was the first new medical school in the UC system, and in the country, in more than 40 years. The first class graduated a couple of summers ago, and it still brings tears to my eyes.

When I became president of Purdue, the university faced a number of budget cuts from the state of Indiana, so I worked to garner broader resources for research and at the same time investigated where we could be more efficient. We made an in-depth study and projection of the next decade for the university, generating a number of ideas and reforms—some initiated, some still experimental. My administration also oversaw the establishment of Purdue’s College of Health and Human Sciences and its Global Policy Research Institute. The result is that today, Purdue is in an even stronger position as a research institution.

NSF Report: Women in Science Today According to an annual report published by the National Science Foundation, women’s participation in science programs has been rising. Today, more women are enrolled in science undergraduate-degree programs nationally than men. Progress, however, is uneven. While women’s representation is particularly strong among the biosciences, there are fewer enrolled nationally in physical sciences or technology-related programs. Participation also thins out in higher-degree programs and employment.

I L L U S T R AT I O N BY C H R I S P H I L P OT

SO URCE: NAT IO NA L SCIENCE F O UN DATI O N 2015 DI VE RSI T Y RE PO RT

7%

1970

Percentage of women enrolled in

Percentage of women in

STEM

occupations.

23% 1990

UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE programs in science nationally.

29%

49% MALE 51% FEMALE

2013

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AT CALTECH

“Caltech is committed to making the Institute a destination where the best and brightest, regardless of their background, can succeed in achieving their academic and personal goals. The Diversity Center at Caltech plays a crucial role by offering programs that support women, underrepresented minorities, and LGBTQ students.”

CINDY A. WEINSTEIN, Vice Provost; Professor of English

alumni.caltech.edu

This year, the percentage of

WOMEN ENTERING CALTECH AS UNDERGRADUATES is the highest on record.

129 MALE 112 FEMALE Caltech Class of 2019

[ Pioneering ] PROFILE

Knowing the Vote Forecasting elections is becoming more sophisticated, thanks in part to methods developed

by Erin Hartman (BS ’07).

PHOTO BY MATTHEW MAHON The pollsters are back.

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With the 2016 presidential race fully underway, candidates are crisscrossing the country to shake hands with the common folk, eat pie, and take their case to the American public. Just where they stump, however, is increasingly determined by armies of statisticians, continually checking the pulse of the electorate. And this time, many of them are building upon methods introduced by Erin Hartman (BS ’07) back in 2012.

During the last presidential election cycle, Hartman served as an analyst on Obama’s campaign, where she was tasked with studying data from its massive polling operation, which was conducting more than 30,000 telephone interviews per week. Hartman’s team needed to quickly sift that data to predict which voters would turn out, how they would vote, and who was capable of being persuaded. Their analysis was then used to deploy armies of volunteers.

Hartman soon realized that the models could be more accurate. “I was completely new to the process. So I didn’t have any preconceptions about how things should be done,” she said. Hartman credits her broad-based analytical training at Caltech, which set her apart from other operatives with more traditional political campaign experience, for allowing her to spot an opportunity.

Hartman started with the observation that randomly conducted polls end up being not that random, after all.

“Usually pollsters will call 1,000 participants within a region as a sample. But it turns out not everyone likes to talk about politics when you call them at dinner,” Hartman said. Some demographics, particularly younger generations,

“Usually pollsters will call 1,000 participants within a region as a sample. But it turns out not everyone likes to talk about politics when you call them at dinner.”

are disaffected, discouraged, or not interested—and they just hang up the phone. “In so doing, these groups systematically remove themselves from the polling.”

And the trend is getting worse. Whereas 50 years ago, nearly half of those called might participate, today it’s down to just 5 percent. “So the question is, who are these 5 percent? Are they truly representative of the region’s voters?”

Hartman asked. “It turns out they’re not.”

Imagine a fictional city in which half of the active voting population is over the age of 50, while those under 25 make up 10 percent. When it comes time to poll, however, the

numbers shift: The Baby Boomers jump up to 75 percent of responses and Millennials fall to just 2 percent.

How do you predict the intentions of someone who doesn’t participate in a poll? After all, just because someone hangs up the phone on a pollster doesn’t mean he or she won’t actually vote.

While attempting to build models for Obama’s team, Hartman realized that if she knew the population’s actual voting habits, she could rebalance the poll. As it turned out, by 2012 new and publicly available voting data offered a wealth of just such information. Hartman was able to synthesize detailed demographics and voting histories and apply them to her models. In the case of our fictional city, Hartman could now reweight the 2-percent response of the younger group to form 10 percent, reflecting the true voter turnout. The result: a more accurate prediction.

How much more accurate? According to Andrew Claster, then the deputy chief analytics officer for the Obama campaign and now a consultant, it was a game changer. “At one point, we saw the Romney campaign dramatically increase their investment in Michigan and Minnesota. Clearly, they thought the states were in play. We wondered ‘What are they seeing?’” he recalled. “But our polling showed a comfortable lead, so we didn’t feel the need to counter.”

Obama won both states by more than 8 percentage points.

Claster added, wryly, “Obviously, their models were flawed.”

Following the 2012 election, Hartman and several partners formed a consulting group, BlueLabs, that has since advised a number of Democratic campaigns, including New Jersey Senator Corey Booker and Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe.

Now this year, the presidential campaigns have taken note. According to Matthew Holleque, who cofounded BlueLabs with Hartman, many of the current candidates employ operations with similarly sophisticated practices.

“Polling is really about efficiency,” Holleque said. “Erin took a complex mathematical problem and found a solution that makes campaigns much more efficient.”

Claster put it more bluntly, “I believe Erin’s work resulted in the most significant improvement in public-opinion survey methodology in more than 30 years.” Within campaign circles, Hartman has received numerous accolades, including being named this year to the Influencers 50 list by Campaigns & Elections.

But while the 2016 campaigns may benefit from Hartman’s methods, it will be without Hartman, who has returned to academia. Currently finishing post-doctorate work at Princeton, she will join UCLA as an associate professor in statistics and political science next year. She wants to go beyond observing and predicting how voters behave, she says. Now she wants to know why.

“Erin was an outstanding student who perhaps fell into social science,” said Michael Alvarez, professor of political science at Caltech. “She accomplished important work in the political sphere and shows the same rigor and inventiveness as a social scientist.”

Asked to predict the 2016 election, Hartman just smiled, “I look forward to finding out along with everyone else.”

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REBALANCING ACT Hartman realized that if she knew a population’s actual voting habits, she could rebalance the polls and create more accurate predictive models.

alumni.caltech.edu

[ Pioneering ] PROFILE

A Nobel Streak Two more Caltech alumni won Nobel Prizes, extending the streak to three years in a row.

BY KATHY SVITIL AND DOUGL AS SMITH For breakthrough techniques in microscopy that

allow researchers to peer inside living cells and observe the proteins within, and the groundbreaking discovery that neutrinos are able to change their identity as they travel through space and therefore have mass, two Caltech alumni have been awarded the highest honor in science. Their 2014 and 2015 wins follow Martin Karplus (PhD ’54), who received the award in chemistry in 2013. To date, 34 alumni and faculty have won 35 awards.

ERIC BETZIG (BS ’83), CHEMISTRY, 2014

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Abbe diffraction limit, a standard microscope is able to capture them. Still, each of the images produced in this way has relatively low resolution—that is, they are blurry.

Betzig, however, realized that by superimposing many such images, he would be able to obtain a sharp super-image, in which nanoscale structures are clearly visible. The new technique was first described in a 2006 paper published in the journal Science.

After graduating from Caltech, Betzig, a physics major from Ruddock House, earned an MS and a PhD from Cornell University. He worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories until 1994, when he stepped away from academia and science to work for his father’s machine-tool company. Betzig returned to research in 2002 and joined Janelia in 2005.

ARTHUR MCDONALD (PHD ’70), PHYSICS, 2015 Arthur B. McDonald, director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) in Ontario, Canada, and Takaaki Kajita, at the University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan, have shared the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery that neutrinos can change their identities as they travel through space and therefore have mass.

McDonald and Kajita lead two large research teams whose work has upended the standard model of particle physics and settled a debate that has raged since 1930, when the neutrino’s existence was first proposed by physicist Wolfgang Pauli. Pauli initially devised the neutrino as a bookkeeping device—one to carry away surplus energy from nuclear reactions in stars and from radioactive decay processes on Earth.

The standard model for many years has assumed neutrinos to be massless and immutable. Billions of them are

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Photo: © Nobel Media AB 2014_Photo Alexander Mahmoud

ERIC BETZIG (BS ’83) found that by using fluorescent proteins that glow when illuminated, it was possible to work around physical restrictions to create very-highresolution optical images of very small objects, such as the inner workings of cells.

Above: Betzig accepting the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014.

Eric Betzig, a group leader at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia, was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Stefan W. Hell of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and William E. Moerner of Stanford University. The three were honored “for the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy,” a method that allows for the creation of “super-images” with a resolution on the order of nanometers, or billionths of a meter.

In essence, the work turns microscopy into “nanoscopy.”

The technique developed by the trio overcomes the so-called Abbe diffraction limit, which describes a physical restriction on the sizes of the structures that can be resolved using optical microscopy, basically saying that nothing smaller than one-half the wavelength of light, or about 0.2 microns, can be discerned by these scopes. The result of the Abbe limit is that only the larger structures within cells—organelles like mitochondria, for example—can be resolved and studied with regular microscopes but not individual proteins or even viruses. The restriction is akin to being able to see the buildings that make up a city but not being able to zoom in to observe the city’s inhabitants and their activities.

Betzig, building on earlier work by Hell and Moerner, found that it was possible to work around the Abbe limit to create very-high-resolution images of a sample, such as a developing embryo, by using fluorescent proteins that glow when illuminated with a weak pulse of light. Each time the sample is illuminated, a different, sparsely distributed subpopulation of fluorescent proteins will light up and, because the glowing molecules are spaced farther apart than the

CATCHING NEUTRINOS Solving the mystery of missing neutrinos would require extremely large detectors in order to catch enough of the elusive particles to get accurate statistics. Left: The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, which McDonald directs, shown under construction in the mid-1990s.

Photos: Top: SNOLAB; Right: Queens University

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coursing through our bodies every second, and we are entirely unaware of them.

There are three types of neutrinos—electron, muon, and tau. The technology to detect electron neutrinos emerged in the 1950s, and it slowly became apparent that as few as one-third of the neutrinos the theorists said the sun should be emitting were actually being observed. Various theories were proposed to explain the deficit, including the possibility that the detectable electron neutrinos were somehow transmuting into their undetectable kin en route to Earth.

Solving the mystery of the missing neutrinos would require extremely large detectors in order to catch enough of the elusive particles to get accurate statistics. Such sensitive detectors also require enormous amounts of shielding to avoid false readings.

The University of Tokyo’s Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector, which came online in 1996, was built 1,000 meters underground in a zinc mine.

McDonald’s SNO, built 2,100 meters deep in a nickel mine, began taking data in 1999. It has two counting systems. One is exclusively sensitive to electron neutrinos, which are the type emitted by the sun; the other records all neutrinos but does not identify their types. The SNO also recorded only about one-third of the predicted number of solar electron-type neutrinos—but the aggregate of all three types measured by the other counting systems matched the theory.

The conclusion, for which McDonald and Kajita were awarded the Nobel Prize, was that neutrinos change identities, and this shows that they have mass. Quantum mechanics treats particles as waves, and the potentially differing masses associated with muons and taus gives them different wavelengths. The probability waves of the alumni.caltech.edu

three particle types are aligned when the particle is formed, but as they propagate they get out of sync. Therefore, there is a one-third chance of seeing any particular neutrino in its electron form. Because these particles have this nonzero mass, their gravitational effects on the large-scale behavior of the universe must be taken into account—a profound implication for cosmology.

McDonald came to Caltech in 1965 to pursue a PhD in physics in the Kellogg Radiation Laboratory under the mentorship of the late Charles A. Barnes, professor of physics, emeritus, who passed away in August 2015. “Charlie Barnes was a great mentor who was very proud of his students,” says professor of physics Bradley W. Filippone, who was a postdoctoral researcher under Barnes. “It is a shame that Charlie didn’t get to see Art receive this tremendous honor.”

A native of Sydney, Canada, McDonald received his bachelor of science and master’s degrees, both in physics, from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1964 and 1965, respectively. After receiving his doctorate from Caltech, McDonald worked for the Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario until 1982, when he became a professor of physics at Princeton University. He left Princeton in 1989 and became a professor at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada; the same year, he was appointed the director of the SNO. In 2006, he was awarded the Gordon and Patricia Gray Chair in Particle Astrophysics, a position he held until his retirement in 2013.

ARTHUR MCDONALD (PHD ’70)

[ Pioneering ] IN BRIEF

WORTH A READ Two Sides to His Story 18

THE IRAN NUCLEAR DEAL Jessica Tuchman Matthews (PhD ’74), who at the beginning of this year ended an 18-year term as president for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published an article in the May 7 issue of the New York Review of Books examining the international nuclear agreement with Iran.

Matthews’ insightful essay evaluated the preliminary framework of the deal, which had just been released and would eventually be finalized in July.

“Those who worry that a deal with Iran will entail some risk should remember that preventing nuclear proliferation almost never happens in a single leap,” Matthews wrote. “International rules and norms are built up brick by brick over years.… The agreement with Iran, if one is finally reached, will not be the end, but a beginning.”

URGING CAUTION DURING A GENOMIC REVOLUTION Earlier this year, an elite group of scientists and ethicists— including Nobel Laureate David Baltimore, President Emeritus and Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biology at Caltech—convened in Napa, California, to discuss the scientific, medical, legal, and ethical implications of genome-engineering technology.

Such technologies—chief among them the now-widespread genetic tool CRISPRCas9, known colloquially as DNA scissors—allow scientists to make precise edits to the genome, or the entire genetic script, of an organism.

“You could exert control over human heredity with this technique, and that is why we are raising the issue,” said Baltimore.

The group published a paper in the April 3 issue of Science that includes a series of recommendations calling for caution, further discussion, and transparency in future research.

TRACKING THE EBOLA OUTBREAK As a digital editor for NPR’s science desk, Michaeleen Callahan-Doucleff (BS ’98) was part of the team that won a George Foster Peabody Award for the series Reporting from the Frontlines: The Ebola Outbreak.

Callahan-Doucleff filed more than 38 reports on NPR’s website from June 2014, when cases of the disease began to spike, until August of this year, when no new cases were reported in Sierra Leone.

Her story on how Ebola affected pregnant mothers, in many cases leaving them without proper medical care, was the second-most-visited story of 2014.

“People often ask me why I made the jump from science to journalism,” Callahan-Doucleff said. “I’m able to be at the front lines of emerging science and health stories and report on complex cases for the public. It’s a place where I feel I can have a great impact.”

To hear a collection of Callahan-Doucleff’s stories, visit alumni.caltech.edu/ michaeleen-doucleff.

In his new book, Michael Gazzaniga (PhD ’68) looks back on his career in neuroscience.

On his first day as a graduate student at Caltech in 1962, Michael Gazzaniga was handed the assignment that set the course of his career. Professor of Psychobiology Roger Sperry tasked the young researcher with conducting a series of tests on a patient known as W.J., a man who had just undergone surgery to relieve brain trauma he had been suffering since World War II, when a German soldier assaulted the former soldier with the butt of a rifle. The surgery severed the connection between W.J.’s left and right hemispheres in the brain, and Gazzaniga and Sperry wanted to test the effects.

Gazzaniga started by displaying an image visible only to W.J.’s right eye, controlled by the left half of his brain. He then asked W.J. to describe the object. Since the left hemisphere is also predominantly the source of language, W.J. was able to describe what he saw. Then, Gazzaniga switched sides. He showed an image to the left eye and again asked W.J. to describe it. This time he couldn’t.

“Because of the special surgery W.J. had undergone, his right brain could no longer communicate with his left brain,” Gazzaniga recalled. He then carefully asked the patient to identify the object by pointing—querying the other half of his brain. W.J. immediately did. “My heart was racing. I was in effect speaking to two brains, one that could talk, and one that couldn’t,” he said.

Gazzaniga writes about this famed experiment, which helped lead to a Nobel Prize in Physiology for Roger Perry, in his book Tales from Both Sides of the Brain, published in February of this year by Harper Collins. The book chronicles Gazzaniga’s decades-long and distinguished career in neuroscience.

“I started just trying to write a scientific history, but it evolved into a memoir,” Gazzaniga said. More than 50 years later, he remains fascinated by the mysteries of the brain.

“New technologies will allow us to go deeper, but it comes down to the same question: How does this one organ hold all of the experiences and thoughts that make us who we are?”

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Friend of the Court Will Peterson (BS ’02) was offered the chance every lawyer dreams of, to argue before the Supreme Court, but the former software engineer had less than four months to prepare his case.

ILLUSTR ATION BY DANA VERKOUTEREN When Will Peterson

heard that a Supreme Court Justice was on the phone for him, he instinctively stood up and straightened his tie.

Looking out the window of his Houston office, the 35-yearold attorney held the phone quietly for a few moments before Justice Antonin Scalia came on the line: A case was coming up, and the government had opted not to defend its position. Would Peterson be interested in arguing the case in their stead?

One week later, it was formally announced that Peterson would be presenting oral arguments before the nation’s highest court—with less than 120 days to prepare.

The law might seem an unexpected career path for a Techer, but Peterson attributes part of his interest to J. Morgan Kousser, the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of History and Social Science at Caltech—specifically his class

on the Supreme Court. “He made the justices approachable,” Peterson said. “We understood the personalities, gained a sense of constitutional issues, and learned how to read the Court’s opinions.”

Kousser remembers long talks with Peterson on a number of subjects. “We disagreed politically on almost everything,” Kousser laughed. “But we both came away having thought through our positions much more fully. He’s one of the most memorable students I’ve ever learned from.”

When Peterson went on to become a software developer for Microsoft, he continued to read court opinions out of interest, and soon decided to return to his home state and enter law school at the University of Texas at Austin. After graduating in 2008, he received coveted posts as a law clerk, first to Fifth Circuit Judge

Edith Jones and then to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. He then joined the Houston-based law firm Beck Redden LLP, which specializes in complex civil trials and appeals.

The case Peterson was drafted on to, Reyes Mata v.

Lynch, was a technical one revolving around immigration and jurisdiction.

When Noel Reyes Mata, an undocumented immigrant, was ordered deported, he appealed, first to the Board of Immigration, and when that failed, to the Fifth Circuit—but that court held that it lacked jurisdiction on the issue.

Reyes then appealed to the Supreme Court last fall. “The question essentially was: Did the Fifth Circuit have authority to reopen Mata’s case or not?” Peterson said.

While the Fifth Circuit said no, the government took the unusual stance of deciding

not to defend its position.

Enter Peterson. “I did not have a client. My role was amicus curiae, or ‘friend of the court,’” Peterson said. “My responsibility was to provide the justices with the strongest arguments for affirming the Fifth Circuit’s judgment.”

Of course, to do that, Peterson would have to learn everything about the case— in less than four months.

Defending a judgment that the government has abandoned is usually a losing battle, and indeed, the Supreme Court held 8-1 that the Fifth Circuit was in error and did in fact have jurisdiction. Mata himself may not be out of the woods—the case now heads back to the lower court for further rulings.

For Peterson, though, the experience was the opportunity of a lifetime. In a footnote to her opinion, Justice Kagan expressed the Court’s gratitude that Peterson “ably discharged his responsibilities.” Peterson believes that his Caltech education has in many ways contributed to his success.

“The law requires a very structured way of thinking, not unlike programming,” he said, before pausing a beat. “Reconnecting with Caltech always reminds me that I’m not actually a successful lawyer, but instead just a failed engineer.”

We’d object.

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“The law requires a very structured way of thinking, not unlike programming.”

alumni.caltech.edu

Bridge Builder When Boston commuters drive over the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, they are doing more than crossing the Charles River in Boston, they are traversing the imagination of Theodore Zoli (MS ’89). Zoli is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading bridge designers. “You try to say much with so few words in poetry, that the space in between the words is huge,” said Zoli. “This is what bridges ought to do.”

P HOTO : D O N EYLES

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TECHER

AUDACIOUS

alumni.caltech.edu

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[ Audacious ] F E AT U R E

A strange mineral in an Italian museum, secret diaries, gem smugglers, a meteorite, and an expedition to a remote part of the world... The extraordinary global hunt for the origins of a rock that was not supposed to exist.

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THE IMPOSSIBLE ROCK

BY BEN TOMLIN ILLUSTR ATIONS BY ZOHAR L AZAR

THE FORBIDDEN CRYSTAL In the early 1980s, Paul Steinhardt (BS ’74) theorized that solids with symmetries thought to be forbidden could, in fact, occur. He termed this new phase of matter “quasicrystals.” Many had been found in the decades since, he knew, but all had been created in a laboratory. “These things could be made, but only under very controlled processes,” Steinhardt said. “But what if nature had already figured out another way to make them?”

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alumni.caltech.edu

[ Audacious ] F E AT U R E

Paul Steinhardt (BS ’74) once imagined a kind of crystal that was not supposed to exist in nature. Decades later, with the help of an Italian mineralogist, he found one. Tracing its origins would take Steinhardt, his son Will (BS ’11), and an international team of researchers to one of the most remote parts of the world, and open new mysteries about the formation of the solar system.

In the fall of 2008, Luca Bindi sat in his lab at the Museum of Natural History at the University of Florence in Italy, poring over data analysis. Then the head of mineralogy, Bindi was conducting a series of X-ray analyses on a selection of micromounts, tiny rock samples displayed in showcases in the museum’s main exhibition hall, specks only a bit larger than grains of sand. One of the samples, catalog number 46407/G, made him sit up straight. If he was reading the data correctly—and he was pretty sure he was—46407/G exhibited properties strongly indicative of an incredibly rare type of matter: a quasicrystal.

If so, it would be the first natural quasicrystal ever discovered.

Quasicrystals were not supposed to exist naturally. In fact, up until three decades ago, they weren’t supposed to exist at all. The laws that govern the structure of crystals dictate that they exhibit certain properties, including specific symmetries.

Quasicrystals defy such boundaries, with compositions unlike any of their brethren. Their initial discovery in 1984 stirred deep controversy and overturned existing preconceptions about matter. Still, they are exceedingly rare, and had only been made in laboratories under tightly controlled conditions. So it then became the common wisdom that nature must not have elected to make them. If this sample was actually a quasicrystal, and if it was naturally made, it would contradict what had for nearly a century been considered a fundamental law.

Sample 46407/G might change the way we look at the world.

Bindi put his findings into an email a few days later.

“The results are incredibly promising,” he wrote—the science-speak equivalent of “Eureka!”

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FORBIDDEN SYMMETRIES

Across the Atlantic, Bindi’s email pinged the inbox of Paul Steinhardt (BS ’74), a theoretical physicist and cosmologist at Princeton University. Steinhardt is a warm but quiet man, pensive and careful with his words. As the director of the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science, he is also

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Photo: Paul Steinhardt

SURPRISING SYMMETRIES Pictured: A 3-D model showing a section of an icosahedral (20sided) quasicrystal. For most of the 20th century, such a formation was thought to be prevented by laws that govern the atomic structure of crystals.

regarded as one of the nation’s leading cosmologists, widely known for developing the first working model of cosmic inflation (and then decades later recanting it in favor of a radically different theory).

Steinhardt also happens to be one of the world’s foremost authorities on quasicrystals; three decades ago, he practically coined the term.

So what exactly is a quasicrystal?

When most people think of a crystal, they conjure up images of jewelry cases filled with multihued minerals with sharp, angular edges. It turns out that these shapes are the result of their atomic structures, which arrange into neat, regular, and repeating geometrical patterns.

Now think of tiles spread across the surface of a floor: Depending on the shape of the tiles, the pattern produces certain symmetries. While there are thousands of crystals, their shapes can be grouped into only four specific symmetries— either two-, three-, four-, or six-fold.

The first hints of this were discovered more than a century ago in 1912, when the German physicist Max von Laue sent beams of X-rays through crystals, capturing beautiful portraits of the resulting diffraction patterns. This quickly opened the door to further discoveries about the makeup of matter. X-ray crystallography, as it became known, offered a new method that allowed researchers to peer into the dazzling and complex atomic structures of minerals, viruses, proteins, and even DNA. Yet compared with other forms of matter, crystals proved to be nature’s minimalists, and the understanding of their rigid architecture and symmetry was considered a closed case.

“It was so fundamental, you learned it in elementary school,” said Steinhardt. “Two, three, four, or six folds— period. That was it.”

There are, of course, other symmetrical compositions in the universe. The tiling on a soccer ball, composed of pentagons and hexagons, includes five-fold symmetries. Mosques throughout the Middle East display Girih tiling with two-, five-, and 10-fold symmetries that produce ornate patterns

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dizzying in complexity and beauty. In 1976, mathematical physicist Roger Penrose proposed a set of just two tiles that could cover a plane infinitely in nonperiodic fashion, full of five-fold symmetries.

But to have such exotic formations occur within crystals… that was forbidden by the laws of material science as we knew them. Such a crystal would be impossible.

Turns out, Steinhardt has a problem with the word “impossible.”

“I think that when someone says ‘impossible,’ I always want to know: Do you mean it violates the laws of physics?”

Steinhardt asks. “Or do you mean that it would be very, very interesting?”

Steinhardt decided to put the crystal law to the test. In the early 1980s, while a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania, he and fellow researcher Dov Levine developed a theoretical framework arguing that solids with forbidden symmetries could occur, at least in principle. They termed this new phase of matter “quasiperiodic crystals,” or “quasicrystals.” By sheer coincidence, around the same time another materials scientist, Dan Shechtman, who was at Johns Hopkins University, stumbled upon just such a formation lurking within an aluminum-manganese alloy and published his findings in 1984, just a few months before Steinhardt and Levine published their own paper.

“Shechtman had a sample without a theory,” Steinhardt says. “We had the theory without a sample.”

The name stuck, but that was all. The reaction from the scientific community was swift and withering. The very idea of quasicrystals, most experts argued, was so heretical to the laws of crystallography that Shechtman, Steinhardt, alumni.caltech.edu

and their colleagues had to be in error. “There are no such thing as quasicrystals,” two-time Nobel laureate and Caltech professor Linus Pauling (PhD ’25) famously declared, “only quasi-scientists.” Pauling labored to explain the strange patterns with another theory, but the evidence mounted as more examples of quasicrystals continued to be found. Within a decade, the tide of scientific thinking began to turn. “I think Pauling thought that such an extraordinary claim required extraordinary evidence,” Steinhardt said. “In the end, I believe he felt that he served by pushing us to eliminate all other options and strengthen our case.”

In 1998, Steinhardt moved from Pennsylvania to the physics department at Princeton, and his primary attention drifted to other research interests. He also focused on his role as a father to his four young children.

Still, one issue continued to trouble him: Hundreds of quasicrystals had been discovered by researchers around the world, but all had been created in a lab. Why had none been found to occur naturally?

“These things could be made, but only under very controlled processes,” Steinhardt said. “But what if nature had already figured out another way to make them?” If so, might one already be hiding within some existing collection? He just had to figure out how to find the needle in a very, very large haystack.

The Internet offered a solution. For a number of years, mineralogists had been cataloging their samples in an international database. This included information from routinely performed powder-diffraction tests, a kind of quick and dirty version of the type of X-ray diffraction test used to detect quasicrystals. Powder diffractions weren’t enough to make a pos-

THE FIRST GLIMMERS When Bindi looked at the results from his initial tests, they were filled with the spikes and patterns that Steinhardt predicted for a quasicrystal. “I absolutely felt, ‘My God, I think I’ve found it!’”

[ Audacious ] F E AT U R E

“I think that when someone says ‘impossible,’ I always want to know: Do you mean it violates the laws of physics? Or do you mean that it would be very, very interesting?”

itive identification, but they could be used to rule out samples.

In 2001, Steinhardt and fellow physicist Peter Lu published an open invitation, along with a methodology, for researchers to help them search their collections. No one responded.

Years passed. Steinhardt’s children grew, went on to high school, and then began to think about college. Then, in 2007, one mineralogist offered to help: Luca Bindi in Florence.

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

Bindi is, in many ways, a study in contrast to Steinhardt.

Where the latter can be collected and circumspect, Bindi is energetic, a fast and reactive speaker with an infectious enthusiasm for his work. In 2007, he was newly appointed as the head of the division of mineralogy at the Museum of Natural History at the University of Florence, the curator of more than 50,000 mineral samples collected from around the world. Bindi thought that if a quasicrystal was hiding in someone’s collection, it might as well be his, and so he agreed to enlist in Steinhardt’s search.

“Steinhardt had already identified several candidates, but none worked out,” Bindi said. “I decided to look at samples with aluminum alloys, which had compositions similar to known quasicrystals.” Over the course of the next year, Bindi would slice razor-thin portions of already tiny grains, then mount them on a glass fiber for examination. It was slow, tedious work that required a great deal of precision. It also meant the destruction of large portions of the material.

Bindi’s eureka moment came on October 2008, when he prepared 46407/G. The rock grain contained a unique blend of copper, zinc, and aluminum interwoven with other minerals—and a few grains of something Bindi couldn’t identify. When he conducted the X-ray diffraction test, it was filled with the spikes and patterns that Steinhardt and Lu predicted. Bindi was stunned. “I absolutely felt, ‘My God, I think I’ve found it!’ ” —but his excitement was met with an unexpected splash of cold water.

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” Steinhardt reminded. He then asked Bindi to send him the sample directly.

When the package arrived at Princeton that December, Steinhardt frowned. The sample was incredibly small, and the work Bindi had already performed meant that there was little material left over. “I had to really squint just to see a couple of the grains,” Steinhardt said. “I was doubtful that we would have enough for all of the experiments we wanted to perform.”

On the morning of New Year’s Eve 2008, Steinhardt trudged across Princeton’s frozen and dead-quiet campus to the university’s PRISM Imaging Center. With no one else in the building, Steinhardt and the center’s director loaded the sample into a powerful electron microscope and switched it on. The screen lit up with a diffraction pattern of dazzling white dots arranged in a starburst pattern, a bit like looking at a streetlight through a kaleidoscope. Steinhardt leaned in; he recognized the pattern immediately.

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Moscow, Russia FALL 2010

Princeton, NJ

Steinhardt and Bindi track down the person who originally found the khatyrkite, mineralogist Valery Kryachko.

NEW YEAR’S EVE 2008 Paul Steinhardt confirms the existence of a quasicrystal in 46407/G through a detailed electron-diffraction analysis.

Khatyrka Region, Koryak Mountains, Russia SUMMER 2011

Pasadena, CA

Amsterdam, Netherlands

SUMMER 2010 Researchers at Caltech discover a unique oxygen-isotope fingerprint that confirms the sample as extraterrestrial.

Timeline

2009–10 Bindi traces the origin of the sample to the widow of a gem dealer in Amsterdam, who reveals two secret diaries that link the khatyrkite to the original holotype in St. Petersburg, Russia.

4,500,000,000 YEARS AGO Objects in the pre-solar system smashed together, resulting in an object with strange and unusual properties, including particles of quasicrystal.

Florence, Italy FALL 2008

Steinhardt, Bindi, and a team of researchers return to the site where the original specimen was found. Defying expectations, they are able to retrieve more samples of the mineral containing quasicrystals.

Luca Bindi, a mineralogist at the University of Florence, discovers properties within a mineral sample labeled “46407/G: khatyrkite” that make it a likely candidate to hold a quasicrystal.

15,000 YEARS AGO

1979

WHAT WOULD BE THE KHATYRKA REGION,

KHATYRKA REGION,

KORYAK MOUNTAINS, RUSSIA

KORYAK MOUNTAINS, RUSSIA

The object falls into the mountains of what would eventually be northeastern Russia.

Valery Kryachko, a young Russian mineralogist, is sent to the Khatyrka region to search for evidence of gold and platinum. He doesn’t find gold but does save samples of a mineral that he can’t identify.

TECHER

Without question, it was a quasicrystal.

“The first spot that we hit was just spectacular,” Steinhardt said. “I guess I had expected to see something with many defects, but this diffraction pattern was as nice as any I had ever seen.”

Steinhardt dashed an email back to Bindi, “Happy Quasi– New Year.”

TRACING THE ORIGIN

Now that Steinhardt was in possession of what he knew to be a quasicrystal, two questions confronted him: How exactly did this rock come to be? And how did it wind up in Bindi’s collection? The first was a scientific problem, the second more of one for a detective. Both proved to be vexing.

Steinhardt started by taking the sample to Lincoln Hollister, a professor of geosciences at Princeton and a leading petrologist—someone who investigates the origins of rocks.

Hollister took a look, then offered some bad news. “What you have here is impossible,” he said.

There it was, that word again, “impossible.”

Hollister elaborated that the rock couldn’t be natural.

First, the sample contained metallic aluminum, which is present on Earth only in man-made form. Aluminum has a strong affinity for oxygen, and binds to it to make aluminum oxide. More puzzling, the substance contained copper, which doesn’t mix with aluminum except in rare manufactured alloys. Steinhardt pressed, “Could it be a meteorite?” They took the sample to specialists in meteorites, who initially ruled out the possibility that it was extraterrestrial.

Hollister’s conclusion: The sample was artificial, likely a piece of slag, or waste from a factory. It could not have formed naturally.

“I have to admit, it was pretty depressing,” Steinhardt said. After the initial excitement, he was now unsure just what he had. Was he really looking at a piece of slag? Could runoff from some mining facility truly produce something as exotic as a quasicrystal? If the rock was not natural, then its significance was severely diminished.

He needed more information.

Photos: Luca Bindi

SECRETS WITHIN SECRETS

Back in Italy, Bindi had also hit a wall. “It was the fall of 2009. I remember sitting at a dinner party one night, utterly frustrated,” Bindi said. He regaled fellow guests with his own efforts to find the source of 46407/G. The sample was labeled khatyrkite, a name that referred to where it was purported to have been found: Khatyrka, located in the Koryak Mountains, a remote mountain range in far-northeastern Siberia. There were some other samples of khatyrkite in museums, but testing revealed all to be fakes, which is less rare than one might imagine; mineralogy is a collector’s game, and prone to counterfeiting.

This meant that there were only two confirmed rocks: theirs and the holotype—the original specimen—which was housed in the St. Petersburg Museum in Russia. There was a good deal of information on the holotype in the 1985 paper naming it. If the samples were related, then they would know much more about their rock’s origins. But other than sharing a name, there was no direct evidence linking the two, and the museum would not allow direct testing. They reached out to the paper’s author, a retired platinum specialist named Leonid Razin, but were greeted with suspicion.

While Razin officially named the mineral khatyrkite, their interactions left Steinhardt uncertain how much the former Soviet scientist actually knew, or whether he had even been the one to retrieve it.

With the holotype a dead end, it added pressure to trace the exact steps of 46407/G. Bindi found that his museum had acquired the specimen in a collection bought from a Dutch gem dealer named Nicholas Koekoek. alumni.caltech.edu

A TINY GRAIN WITH A BIG SECRET Above: The original khatyrkitebearing sample belonging to he University of Florence. Left: Images of the diffraction pattern of the quasicrystal with icosahedral symmetry. In 2011, it was officially accepted as a new mineral and given the name icosahedrite.

27 “But who is this Koekoek?” Bindi lamented to his friends at the dinner. “He’s nowhere to be found on the Internet, and the last name is a common one. It’s like looking for John Smith.”

“I know an old woman named Koekoek,” one of the fellow dinner guests, who also lived in Amsterdam, said. “I can ask her. Maybe she’ll know somebody.” Bindi shrugged, at that point resigned that any lead, however thin, was worth a shot.

Then, days later, he got a call with surprising news: The woman was in fact the gem dealer’s widow. Bindi booked the soonest possible flight to Amsterdam.

Meeting in her dim apartment, Koekoek’s widow shared with Bindi a “secret diary” that had belonged to her husband. Within its pages was an entry detailing the khatyrkite: It came from a Romanian smuggler identified only as Tim. Bindi tried for months to track Tim down, but could find no trace of him. “This ‘Tim’ was even more mysterious than the first gem dealer,” Bindi said. “There was no evidence he had traded with anyone else.” So Bindi went back to the widow six months later, hoping for a little more information.

Then, to Bindi’s immense surprise, the widow went to her bookshelves and retrieved a second diary—a “secret, secret diary.” Koekoek apparently kept two versions of his notes, one to protect his sources and presumably himself, and one that acted as his definitive record. This second secret diary revealed a different name as the supplier of the khatyrkite, and a familiar one: Leonid Razin.

“So there Razin was again,” Steinhardt said. “He was the source of both the sample in St. Petersburg and ours in Florence.”

Steinhardt remained wary of Razin, and began to feel somewhat adrift in his search. The Princeton professor’s world was in the cosmos. He traded in theories and experimentation, not gemstones, smugglers, and secret diaries.

Still, both scientists and detectives required one thing in common: hard evidence.

Hoping for another clue, Steinhardt began to pore back over the original 1985 paper when he stopped on a name:

“The first spot that we hit was just spectacular.

I guess I had expected to see something with many defects, but this diffraction pattern was as nice as any I had ever seen.”

[ Audacious ] F E AT U R E

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THE THICK BLUE CLAY broke their shovels, so Will Steinhardt resorted to using his hands to fill 40-pound buckets, which they would boil down. Kryachko then panned the remnants in the riverbed and boiled it again, exactly as he had before, until all that remained was a thimbleful of dust.

Valery Kryachko. Most had assumed Kryachko was a local miner who perhaps had helped the science team, and that was all. But Steinhardt suddenly recalled having seen the same name in other scientific papers. Kryachko might be more involved than previously thought.

Steinhardt and Bindi found Kryachko, now in his 60s living part-time in Moscow, and reached out via email. To their delight—they learned that he was a mineralogist, and, in fact, he had also heard of them. Kryachko had read with interest the articles published in academic journals about their quasicrystal search, though he had no idea he might somehow be connected.

Kryachko confirmed that, indeed, he had been the one to find the khatyrkite. As a young geologist, he had been sent in 1979 to the Siberian peninsula by Razin to search for platinum and gold deposits. He didn’t find any gold, but Kryachko did come back with some small, interesting nuggets he couldn’t identify and gave them to Razin.

“We couldn’t believe it,” Steinhardt said. “We called just hoping for a lead on our sample, and we found the very man who may have retrieved it.”

Even better, Kryachko said that he remembered the exact spot—and would be willing to take them there.

IT FELL ON OUR HEADS FROM SPACE

“I have heard the stories about quasicrystals my entire life,”

said Paul’s son, Will Steinhardt. Tall and slender, with what friends describe as an adventurous demeanor and quick wit, Will Steinhardt grew from a boy to a young man over the course of his father’s search. “A lot of people treated my father as this renowned scientist. But to me he was just my dad—and one of his interests was looking for this weird kind of crystal.” Still, something must have made an impression; Will Steinhardt eventually chose to follow in his father’s footsteps and began attending Caltech in 2007, where he majored in geophysics (BS ’11).

Will was 20 and a sophomore when 46407/G was found, and as the elder Steinhardt undertook his investigation, the father and son would spend long hours discussing the rock together by phone and over holiday visits. “I think my dad would readily admit that he’s not a geologist,” said Will Steinhardt. “Here I was being educated at what I believe is the best geosciences program in the world.”

The two agreed that Caltech might be able to help more directly, and Paul Steinhardt brought the sample to Pasadena for testing, where he was referred to John Eiler, the Robert P. Sharp Professor of Geology and Professor of Geochemistry. Testing the samples at the Caltech Microanalysis Center, Eiler found silicates and oxides that bore a distinctive oxygen-isotope fingerprint dating back to the pre-solar system. The sample was extraterrestrial.

“No mineral on Earth bears such a signature,” Eiler said.

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EVERYONE PLACED BETS on whether or not they had found even one sample containing a quasicrystal. “By the time we left, I thought our odds had improved to one in 100,” Paul Steinhardt said.

Left: The expedition team.

“There was your answer, and it was the least likely one: This rock fell on our heads from space.”

Now Paul Steinhardt had two important pieces of evidence: He knew that the rock was a fragment of a meteorite, and he also knew where it was found. There was one thing left to do. He called his son and asked if he wanted to join an expedition to Russia.

“There aren’t too many times you get to go to a remote part of the planet in search of a one-of-a-kind meteorite,” laughed Will Steinhardt. “You know…just a typical camping trip with your dad.”

Photo: Paul Steinhardt

JOURNEY TO THE SOURCE

In July 2011, a team of scientists, including Paul and Will Steinhardt and Bindi, gathered outside Anadyr, a town in the northeast of Siberia. There they met Kryachko and a small contingent of Russian mineralogists who would be their guides. Never an outdoorsman, Steinhardt was now venturing into one of the most remote regions in Russia.

Weather ruled out traveling by air, so they would have to drive in snowcat trucks, which were essentially large metal boxes with tank treads meant to carve their own roads.

Crossing the tundra was a grueling four-day journey. The ground, packed under snow and ice for most of the year, had thawed to a slushy mud that made walking impossible.

Bears were known to be close by, migrating to the streams for the wild salmon, which were so abundant you could reach in and catch them with your hands. Then there were the swarms of mosquitoes, which immediately attacked any exposed skin. “You would unzip your hood to eat, and they would fly inside your mouth,” Will Steinhardt said.

Kryachko led them to the small streambed where, 32 years before, he had first sifted the soil. They had finally arrived at the source.

Paul Steinhardt surveyed the area. He tried to remain realistic about their chances of finding another quasicrystal sample, which he estimated to be one in 1,000. The more feasible objective, he reminded everyone, was to learn as much as they could about the surrounding environment. Still—he allowed himself a bit of optimism. Over the next 10 days, the team worked to dredge mud from the river. The thick blue clay broke their shovels, so Will Steinhardt resorted to using his hands to fill 40-pound buckets, which they would boil down. Kryachko then panned the remnants in the riverbed and boiled it again, exactly as he had before, until all that remained was a thimbleful of dust. Will Steinhardt marveled at Kryachko’s speed and dexterity, “You could see the decades of experience in his hands.”

Bindi examined some of the samples through a microscope in his tent. The more he looked, the more enthusiastic he became. “There were a number of samples that looked very similar to ours in Florence,” Bindi said. There was, of course, no way to know whether or not they had a quasicrystal until they returned—but Bindi’s optimism was infectious, and the team felt buoyed by the sense that they were on to something.

Paul Steinhardt found that he could now relax a bit, which allowed him to appreciate another unique part of the experience—working with his son as a scientist. “One of the great privileges of being a father is the ability to form a relationship with your child as an adult,” Steinhardt said. “I got to see how excellent a field scientist Will is.” alumni.caltech.edu

Will Steinhardt echoed the sentiment, “I came not just because I know geoscience, obviously, but also because I know my father. And after this trip…I felt I knew him better.”

Their last night, Kryachko offered a heartfelt toast, remarking that being associated with the search was a highlight of his career. Bindi felt the same, “This project has really become a part of me. I owe a great deal to my collaboration with Paul, and am proud to count him as a terrific friend.”

Everyone then placed bets on whether or not they had found even one sample containing a quasicrystal. “By the time we left, I thought our odds had improved to one in 100,” Paul Steinhardt said. Bindi wagered one in 20.

BEATING THE ODDS

Bindi was right to be optimistic. Back in Princeton, tests conducted on one of the larger samples revealed the same composition of aluminum alloy and—lurking within—a grain of quasicrystal, the very same variety that had been found in 46407/G. “All of that crazy, crazy stuff we went through—it just paid off,” Paul Steinhardt said. “To see that exact same X-ray diffraction pattern was immensely satisfying.”

While Steinhardt and Bindi were conducting their research, Dan Shechtman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for spotting the first quasicrystal nearly three decades earlier. The quasicrystal had gone from a theoretical object, to a contested curiosity, to an accepted man-made substance, to—when Steinhardt and Bindi published their full findings in the spring of 2012—a part of nature.

There are, it turns out, a number of mysteries packed into the tiny specks of Paul Steinhardt and Bindi’s extraterrestrial rock: Not only the presence of never-before-seen combinations of elements like metallic aluminum, but how they formed and what that tells us about the evolution of our solar system.

“We thought that a certain type of matter could not exist— and it can. Then we thought nature couldn’t make it—and it does,” Paul Steinhart said. “The existence of this one little rock tells us that we missed something, which raises the question: What else might we be missing?” Like any good mystery, the story continues, but the investigators have assembled a compelling case for the journey of 46407/G: Four-and-a-half billion years ago, objects in the pre-solar system smashed together, resulting in an object with strange and unusual properties, including particles of quasicrystal.

The asteroid lingered in space until 15,000 years ago, when it fell to Earth, crashing into the mountains of what would eventually be northeastern Russia. With time and erosion, the shattered pieces slowly migrated, coming to rest in a small streambed, where they were sifted in 1979 by a young Russian mineralogist panning for gold. One piece was sent to a museum in St. Petersburg, the other passed through several hands before coming to the University of Florence, where it was labeled and placed into storage. Decades later, a researcher spotted signs of a dazzling crystalline structure lurking inside, and sent it to Paul Steinhardt, the man who was among the first to imagine that such a crystal could even exist, and who had been searching the world for just such a rock.

What would be the chances? Incredibly low. But not, it turns out, impossible.

“We thought that a certain type of matter could not exist—and it can.

Then we thought nature couldn’t make it—and it does. The existence of this one little rock tells us that we missed something, which raises the question: What else might we be missing?”

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[ Audacious ] PROFILE

her work in digital disease detection. We spoke with Chunara about her research and the emerging area of crowdsourced health data.

What is the focus of your work?

The goal of my research is to try to understand how infectious disease spreads in populations. Traditional health systems are really the gold standard for collecting and analyzing information on viral outbreaks, but information can travel slowly. With the proliferation of mobile Internet-based systems, we can crowdsource real-time information to offer clinicians and the public an enhanced picture of the path and progress of an outbreak.

Your study of the cholera outbreak in Haiti was one of the first to compare online activity with the movement of disease. What did you find?

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Going Viral Rumi Chunara’s research focuses on harnessing novel information sources and developing the appropriate computational techniques to understand how disease spreads.

PHOTO BY MACIEK JASIK Today, when there

is an outbreak of disease, the first reports of it are likely to be online, through Facebook or Twitter. And as word in cyberspace goes viral, it can map closely

to the spread of the actual virus in the physical world.

That’s the conclusion of NYU researcher Rumi Chunara (BS ’04), whose paper analyzing Twitter and other online activity surrounding

the 2010 outbreak of cholera in Haiti made waves in the public health world. So much so that in 2014 she was named to MIT Technology Review’s “35 Innovators Under 35” list for

In January of 2010, Haiti suffered a catastrophic earthquake. Nine months later, the Haitian Ministry of Public Health and Population (MSPP) announced an outbreak of cholera, which eventually affected nearly half a million people.

While I was at my previous post with HealthMap (a real-time disease surveillance website) and the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program at Harvard Medical School, my fellow researchers and I reviewed the first 100 days of the outbreak. We took data from HealthMap and Twitter and compared it to Haiti’s official reports, which could have a lag of up to two weeks. We then developed epidemiological models to try and get a sense of the rate at which things were changing.

Overall, we found strong correlation between the Twitter data and official reports. Moreover, we also found points when the Twitter data could be used to estimate the trajectory of the outbreak. That’s particularly useful because data from social media is publicly available in real time. Since TECHER

Mapping the Outbreak Chunara’s breakout study combined data from HealthMap, an automated software platform that surveys a variety of sources for health alerts, and social-media postings via Twitter to produce this map of Haiti. The dots represent alerts during the first 100 days of the 2010 cholera outbreak and closely mirror the official

“The overarching goal of my research is to improve our knowledge of how and why infectious and noncommunicable diseases spread in populations.”

accounts from Haiti of the disease’s actual movements. Whereas government reports can take weeks to publish, Chunara’s data could be tracked almost in real time, potentially offering health officials a powerful tool to aid in first response.

E AC H P O I N T R E P R E S E N TS A H E ALT H M AP AL E RT.

10.10.2010–11.05.2010

we published that study, we have continued to improve on these efforts, as have a number of groups.

What are the challenges to this type of research?

First, we have to keep in mind that this data is not a replacement for traditional methods of disease tracking but meant to augment them.

We also have to be careful to isolate the relevant data.

In 2013, Google Flu Trends, a terrific service that monitors web searches to predict outbreaks of the flu, overestimated the number of cases in the U.S. by a good margin. It was a good cautionary example. Online searches are just a proxy for what might be happening.

Is a person searching for themselves or someone in their household? Are they really sick? If they are sick, do they really have the flu? Are they influenced by the media or other social networks? These questions led me to launch GoViral last year, a research program that combines online data from mobile apps with home diagnostic kits. This is the first time that we have actually crowdsourced to get diagnostic samples from people. We’re able to get a clearer picture of a person’s online activity correlated with their actual health.

How do you imagine this kind of research being used?

The main advantages are in speed of access to medical information. That’s important, because in our era of increased mobility, diseases can spread globally more quickly. First responders could leverage information to target emerging situaalumni.caltech.edu

tions or create public health infrastructure.

Wearable technology and mobile apps are starting to collect more data on health and fitness. Will this affect your research?

Absolutely. There has been a lot of discussion surrounding the development and implications of those products. This field of research will continue to grow as we acquire new capabilities to collect information. At the same time, there are significant issues to be thought out regarding privacy and security, which will take some time. We are seeing a faster pace of information sharing between the tech industry and academic research, overall. Hopefully it will offer more opportunities for scientists to examine data and then see results from their research deployed.

31 11.06.2010–11.22.2010

1 1 . 2 3 . 2 0 10– 12. 10. 2010

You are advocating for more crowdsourcing of public health data. Why?

I think that we can do more than just monitor data from social media traffic. We can also ask the public directly for their help in collecting health information. Our early work with GoViral shows that they can be willing and effective partners. By actively crowdsourcing, we can collect information at the point of care. We can also learn about other things, like contact patterns and social interactions that affect disease dynamics.

And there is another advantage to this approach: while conducting research, we can engage and educate individuals to become more proactive in their own health—which is ultimately the best way to curb the spread of disease.

12.11.2010–01.02.2011

0 1 . 0 3 . 2 0 11– 01. 28. 2011

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11.06.2010

11.23.2010

1 2. 11. 2010

01. 03. 2011

Visualizing a Black Hole Kip Thorne (BS ’62) produced the 2014 science-fiction movie Interstellar, directed by Christopher Nolan. Thorne worked with the special-effects team to produce realistic simulations, such as this image of Gargantua, the super-massive black hole at the center of the story. While it has been described as the most accurate depiction of a black hole committed to film, Thorne says that it could have been better still. “The more realistic simulations were darker,” Thorne said. “But Nolan worried they might have been confusing to the audience.” Thorne’s contributions helped lead to the film winning an Academy Award for visual effects in 2015.

COURTE SY O F PA R A M O UN T P I CT UR E S

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TRANSFORMING

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[ Transforming ] ALUMNI AWARDS

DAVID D. HO

(BS ’74, BIOLOGY) Director and Chief Executive Officer, Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center; Irene Diamond Professor, The Rockefeller University

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When looking at the history of HIV and AIDS research, it is impossible not to mention the work of David Ho. A recognized leader at the forefront of the field, Ho has spent nearly his entire professional career devoted to the disease.

In the mid-’90s, Ho led a now-famous study using patients’ treatment data as well as novel mathematical and computer simulations to model the replication rates and mutations of the virus. This directly led to a series of groundbreaking treatments known as the combination antiretroviral therapy, commonly referred to as the AIDS cocktail.

While not a cure, it has durably controlled the virus and dramatically prolonged the lifespan of millions.

“Back when we started, there was not a lot of mathematical study in biological research,” Ho said. “Today it’s an integral part with gene sequencing and big data. I credit my Caltech training for equipping me to step back and look at the problem differently.”

Ho’s discoveries have earned him numerous accolades, including Time magazine’s Man of the Year in 1996 and a Presidential Citizens Medal in 2001.

Danny Ghitis

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THE 2015 DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS CALTECH recognizes four of its graduates who highlight the breadth of fields in which the Institute’s alumni have gone on to become leaders—ranging from astrophysics and mathematics to biology and medicine.

First presented in 1966, the awards recognize a particular achievement of noteworthy value, a series of such achievements, or a career of noteworthy accomplishment.

alumni.caltech.edu

R E A D M O R E A B O U T E AC H D I S T I N G U I S H E D A L U M N I AT A L U M N I . C A LT E C H . E D U / DA A - 2 0 1 5

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[ Transforming ] ALUMNI AWARDS

QUYNH-THU LE (BS ’89, BIOLOGY, CHEMISTRY) Katharine Dexter McCormick and Stanley McCormick Memorial Professor; Professor and Chair, Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford University

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Oncologist Quynh-Thu Le has devoted her nearly two-decade career to cancer research. She is the first woman to lead Stanford’s radiation-oncology department, one of the oldest and most advanced centers of its type in the country, where she is credited with seeking out new technology and research from across multiple disciplines in order to advance more comprehensive therapies. Through her research, Le has identified a number of biomarkers for specific head and neck tumors, a crucial step toward targeted treatment.

“We want to identify tumors with ever greater certainty, then deliver treatment with greater precision,” Le said. “Ultimately, the goal is to add years— quality years—to a person’s life. I can’t think of a higher calling.”

TECHER

KIP S. THORNE

(BS ’62, PHYSICS) Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus, Caltech Kip Thorne is perhaps one of the most recognized names today in theoretical science, known for his contributions to gravitational physics and astrophysics, and a leading expert on Einstein’s general theory of relativity. In 1973, Thorne co-authored Gravitation with Charles Misner and John Wheeler, widely considered the classic textbook on general-relativity theory.

A decade later, he cofounded the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), the largest-ever project to be funded by the National Science Foundation, and one that has spanned three decades to construct.

The second-generation Advanced LIGO began operation in September of this year, and the results of its experiments are eagerly anticipated.

Thorne retired from Caltech in 2009, and has started a second career as a filmmaker, producing 2014’s Interstellar (see p.

32). Amid all his accomplishments, he is most proud of his role as a teacher, noting the 52 physicists he has mentored. “Now I have the privilege of seeing this next generation of physicists—many of whom are better than me—take over,” Thorne said.

alumni.caltech.edu

R E A D M O R E AT A L U M N I . C A LT E C H . E D U / DA A - 2 0 1 5

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[ Transforming ] ALUMNI AWARDS

STANISLAV SMIRNOV

(MS ’95, PHD ’96, MATHEMATICS) Professor of Mathematics, University of Geneva; Director of SwissMAP, National Centres of Competence in Research

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In 2001, Stanislav Smirnov caught the attention of the mathematics world when he solved one of the most elusive problems relating to percolation theory, a rich and complicated mathematical field with applications to statistical and theoretical physics. Smirnov validated assumptions physicists had long held but could not rigorously prove. In the process, he formed new theories that placed a firm foundation underneath the burgeoning world of mathematical physics. His discoveries earned him the Fields Medal, the highest honor in mathematics, in 2010.

“Mathematics was for a time perhaps a very specialized field,” Smirnov said. “Increasingly we see it playing a greater role within a number of fields, including physics, biology, economics, and computer science…it truly is the universal language.”

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Caltech and the Factory of Ideas

Source images: Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center.

Long before Google, Apple, or SpaceX got in the game, the most powerful company to pursue privatized basic scientific research belonged to “Ma Bell.” For a long stretch of the 20th century, Bell Laboratories was one of the most innovative scientific organizations in the world, producing a steady stream of discoveries that heralded the modern age of communication, electronics, computer programming, and more. We spoke with Jon Gertner, author of the book The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation, about the iconic company and some of the intersections it had with Caltech.

ILLUSTR ATION BY JULIEN PACAUD THE CALTECH CONTINGENT A generation of gifted and influential scientists graduated from Caltech and joined Bell Labs. Pictured from left: Charles Townes (PhD ’39), who passed away this year, William Shockley (BS ’32), Frank Jewett (BS 1898, Throop Polytechnic Institute), and John Pierce (BS ’33, MS ’34, PhD ’36). alumni.caltech.edu

What interested you in Bell Labs?

amounts of money into research and development. As a result, Bell Labs was able to pursue a wide range of basic research, propelling discoveries over the course of the 20th century.

For those who don’t know, tell us a bit about the early Bell Labs.

One of the things that stood out in reading the book was the intersection between Bell Labs and Caltech, and the surprising number of graduates who spent all or part of their careers there.

My main interest in writing the book was to try to understand innovation. Bell Labs offers a unique case study into how scientific ideas ultimately become applied to society.

Bell Labs began as a research arm of the American Telegraph and Telephone company (AT&T). Formed in 1925, its original and primary mission was to design equipment to further the phone system. AT&T then controlled somewhere between 80 to 90 percent of the phone service in the United States and thus could funnel truly significant

Absolutely. It’s safe to say that Bell inherited a great deal of intellectual capital from Caltech.

You could start with Frank Jewett, the founding president of Bell Labs, who graduated from Caltech in 1898,

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[ Transforming ] HISTORY

PROJECT ECHO was the first passive communications satellite experiment. Two balloons were launched in 1960 and 1964 and floated into low Earth orbit. Communications signals, broadcast from Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, bounced off Echo’s reflective metallic surface and were then received at Bell Labs in New Jersey.

when it was named Throop Polytechnic Institute. From the beginning, Jewett really leaned on his relationships to find and acquire young talent, particularly Robert Millikan, with whom he worked at the University of Chicago. When Millikan became president of Caltech, Jewett called, saying, “Who are your best students? Send them to us.”

This, in turn, facilitated the movement of a generation of gifted and influential scientists from academia to industry. Brilliant people such as Dean Wooldridge (PhD ’36), who went on to cofound the aerospace company TRW [with Simon Ramo (PhD ’36)], and Charles Townes (PhD ’39), who won the Nobel Prize in 1964 for the invention of the maser.

You write that equally important to the discoveries that came out of Bell Labs was its process of innovation.

That’s right. There had long been this notion of the “lone inventor in the lab.” But as the research became more and

more complex, that idea was untenable. Discoveries were now more reliant on teams of scientists.

Perhaps the best example of this evolution involves the transistor, which was invented in 1947 by two of Bell’s researchers, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain (for which they won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956), who both worked in a group headed by physicist and Caltech graduate William Shockley (BS ’32).

Unfortunately, Shockley was an incredibly flawed and controversial figure who, especially in his later years, harbored a number of deeply unappealing ideas for which he was rightly ostracized. But there was this other Shockley, this young Shockley, who cast a large shadow at Bell as a sharp scientist and a strong manager. He can be credited with recognizing the significance of Bardeen and Brattain’s work, for championing it, and for developing with them the first point-contact transistor. This, in turn, really heralded the era of all modern electronic devices.

Credit certainly goes to the scientists involved, but it’s

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TECHER

worth noting that they operated in a new working environment: These were scientists unified by a process. I think that’s perhaps another way that Caltech impacted Bell Labs, by sending people trained in its methods of discovery who in turn developed and led these larger teams that allowed Bell Labs to grow.

And it really did grow. By the 1950s, the scale and the diversity of pursuits at Bell Labs was unparalleled. What drove that?

Well, it was a combination of available resources matched with the ambition of the researchers. In my opinion, of all the graduates from Caltech who went to Bell Labs, by far the most influential was John Pierce (BS ’33, MS ’34, PhD ’36). I call Pierce “the Great Instigator.” He was not so much a manager as a propeller; he had a real talent to get individuals interested in something that had not occurred to them. He’d walk into a room and say, “Hey, why don’t you work on this?” with no particular road map. And with hundreds of people working for him, he pushed Bell Labs in a staggering variety of directions.

It was Pierce’s vision for communication satellites that led to Project Echo, which was an enormous silver balloon about eight stories high, sent up by NASA, off of which they reflected a signal from California to New Jersey. That eventually gave rise to Telstar, which was really the first active communication satellite. Pierce gave the early pushes for cellular telephones, wireless technologies, and even envisioned one day having handheld computers.

In the book, you mark the 1970s as the changing of an era for Bell Labs.

Several things began to happen by then. A movement to break up AT&T’s monopoly gained momentum, outside competition became more intense, and new technologies like computing began to rise. Little by little, Bell Labs became smaller and smaller. By the 2000s, it began to look like a much more conventional equipment laboratory serving the needs of Alcatel-Lucent, which owns it as of this year. There were and still are good people doing really interesting work there, but the mission and ambition of Bell Labs is much smaller.

[E ditor ’ s notE : Another Caltech alum, Eric Betzig (BS ’83), started his career at Bell Labs in 1989, where he made advances in optical microscopy. This work set the stage for future discoveries after he left Bell that would eventually earn him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014 — see p. 16.]

Is there a company today that calls to mind the earlier Bell Labs?

Photo: Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center.

That’s an interesting question. I think the answer is no. I spend a good amount of time writing about innovation at private companies. Some might say that Google [or now its holding company Alphabet], with its riskier projects like the self-driving car or Project Loon, or SpaceX, with its focus on privatizing space exploration, might be considered close to Bell.

But not even these companies can approach the sheer scale and diversity of research interests that Bell Labs pursued. This was very much a singular company at a particular point in time, very much a product of its era.

What Bell Labs could do, and what is potentially missing in today’s blisteringly fast tech industry, is to take a very long view, to focus on work with payoffs 10, 20, 30 years down the line.

Again, my interest was to try to trace the roots of innovation. You need not look far to see how Bell Labs shaped the world around us. And through a number of very talented individuals, I believe Caltech made its mark on Bell Labs. alumni.caltech.edu

Bell Labs Firsthand We asked alumni who worked at Bell Labs to share their experiences.

“I remember sitting in the cab of the 30 ft. Horn Antenna in Holmdel, N.J., and listening to the voice of President Eisenhower as the Project Echo balloon came over the horizon.”

ROBERT DEGRASSE (BS ’51), AT BELL LABS 1957-60

“Consider, as you read an email, the entire stack [of innovations] that made it possible: the transistors driving the screen, the lasers that cut the transistors into silicon, the information theory that underlies the programming, the operating system, which is probably derived from UNIX. All from Bell Labs. Reading on mobile?

Cell-based radio telephony is Bell Labs, too. What’s the impact? Immeasurable!”

DAN GREENBERG (BS ’87), AT BELL LABS 1986-93

“Our bosses always had our backs.

There were some odd ones; a man who always dressed in safari clothes (I heard he invented UNIX). Another always walked around backwards.”

JAMES HANSON (PHD ’90), AT BELL LABS 1989-91

“Professor John Pierce asked his ex Bell co-workers to hire me for the summer. They wrote back, ‘Why should we hire this guy? He has less than an A in some important subjects.’ (Those who recall EE113 know how hard that course was.) Pierce told them to hire me anyway, so they did. “ RICHARD LYON (BS ’74), AT BELL LABS 1973

“Great people and culture—that was the power of Bell Labs.”

LANCE WEST (MS ’83), AT BELL LABS 1982-84

For even more stories, and to share your own, visit: alumni.caltech.edu/bell

“You need not look far to see how Bell Labs shaped the world around us. And through a number of very talented individuals, I believe Caltech made its mark on Bell Labs.”

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[ Transforming ] PROFILE

Dean Oliver’s quantitative methods influenced nearly every aspect of the team: From line-up changes to game-day strategies, he made a mark.

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Quantum Hoop Dreams How Dean Oliver (BS ’90) became known as the father of basketball analytics.

BY MARCUS WOO When Ty Lawson declared for the NBA draft in 2009,

he was one of the best players in college basketball. He had just led the North Carolina Tar Heels to a national championship, earning player-of-the-year honors and an award given to the top college point guard.

The problem was, listed at 5’11”, Lawson didn’t have the size and stride of other guards. But that didn’t matter to Dean Oliver, head of the Denver Nuggets’ nascent analytics group— and a pioneer in the growing field of basketball analytics.

Compared with what other successful NBA players had done in college, Lawson was just as good. He scored, racked up assists, took care of the ball, and was adept at picking up steals. Adding all that up, Oliver projected Lawson to be a top point guard and lobbied hard for the Nuggets to pick him.

The idea met with some resistance, but Oliver found support from Mark Warkentien, then the vice president of basketball operations of the Nuggets and the man who had hired him in 2006. Relying on conventional methods—using

“eyes and ears,” as Warkentien calls it—Warkentien and some of the other scouts also thought Lawson was the best choice. Oliver’s analysis confirmed their instincts and helped to win over doubters. “The numbers screamed that Lawson was a great deal,” Warkentien says.

The Nuggets traded up to take Lawson with the 18th pick in the draft. He would turn out to be one of the best players taken that year and a solid floor general for years to come. “In hindsight, everyone thinks it was a steal,” says Warkentien, now the director of player personnel for the New York Knicks.

Oliver’s quantitative methods influenced nearly every aspect of the team: From line-up changes to game-day strategies, Oliver made a mark. “The next thing you know, we’re in the Western Conference Finals, [and] I get executive of the year,” Warkentien says of the Nuggets’ 2008–09 season, still the best in franchise history.

Oliver’s route to the NBA wasn’t conventional. First off, he studied engineering at Caltech. He played for the team, TECHER

MOVERS

ILLUSTR ATIONS BY PIERLUIGI LONGO

but even he admits he wasn’t very good. Because of a rare infection as a child, Oliver became blind in his left eye by the time he was 10. Although he didn’t have much playing time, he watched and learned about building offenses and defenses from then-coach Gene Victor. During Oliver’s junior and senior years, he traded his uniform for a clipboard and served as an assistant coach.

As an undergrad, Oliver already had an innate feel for statistics and thrived when he took quantum mechanics—inherently probabilistic and notoriously nonintuitive. “It was just more of the way my mind works,” he recalls. As exams were finishing up at the end of his freshman year, he kept close track of the NBA Finals, developing methods that would become the foundation for analytics today used in the industry.

Even when he went to grad school, basketball remained a passion. “I thought about basketball all the time,” he says.

While Oliver studied environmental engineering at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, he also worked as a scout for the perennial basketball powerhouse, scoping out teams like Duke and Wake Forest.

Oliver continued developing his own ideas for using statistics to understand and optimize basketball strategies and wrote a weekly web column while beginning his career as an environmental engineer. He quantified how being an efficient team comes down to shooting, turnovers, rebounding, and free throws. His analysis also demonstrated that the harder a player tries to score, the less efficient he is, as well as revealing that during the last few seconds of the shot clock, NBA offensive efficiency drops.

When he learned that famed baseball statistician Bill James wanted to write a basketball book—after asking Oliver to share some ideas—he realized he needed to do the same, lest he be scooped. So he took a leave from work and wrote Basketball on Paper, published in 2004 (a year after Michael Lewis’s bestselling Moneyball spotlighted analytics in baseball). As it turned out, James never wrote his book and instead endorsed Oliver’s.

“It’s a tremendously important book in terms of understanding a sport from a statistical point of view,” says Ben Alamar, director of production analytics at ESPN. “It’s the top book in the field for sure.”

Oliver ended up quitting his engineering job altogether and spent most of 2004 traveling around the country, talking to as many NBA insiders as possible. By October, he’d landed a job with the Seattle Supersonics.

What stood out for Warkentien, who hired him two years later for the Nuggets, was Oliver’s recognition that numbers were only part of the decision-making process and—perhaps more importantly—his ability to bridge the divide between stat geeks and old-school coaches. “You have to speak their language,” says Oliver. “You speak basketball to them.”

After his stint at Denver, Oliver helped lead ESPN’s analytics department, before heading off to the Sacramento Kings. While at ESPN, he developed tools like the college football and basketball power indices, which predict team successes, and a system called Total Quarterback Rating (QBR). Both are now essential parts of ESPN’s coverage.

Today nearly every NBA team has an analytics department. “People who are analysts now have jobs in the NBA because of Dean,” ESPN’s Alamar says. While not everyone’s convinced of the power of analytics (just ask Charles Barkley), attitudes have changed. After all, when millions of dollars are at stake, you want as much information as possible. “If you choose to absolutely ignore numbers,” Warkentien says, “then that’s just foolish.”

As for Ty Lawson, he was recently traded to the Houston Rockets, who reached the Western Conference Finals last year. The Rockets believe Lawson is the missing piece to a championship team. And because of basketball analytics, Oliver says, Houston knows what it’s doing. alumni.caltech.edu

Marie E. Csete

(MS ’98, PhD ’00) Named President of Huntington Medical Research Institutes Marie Csete joined Huntington Medical Research Institutes (HMRI) in 2014, where she has direct oversight of research planning, operations, and regulatory compliance. Prior to joining HMRI, Csete served as the chief science officer of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine. She is also a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Southern California and a visiting associate in medical engineering at Caltech.

Francis J. Doyle

(PhD ’91) Appointed Dean of Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Francis Doyle became the new dean of Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) in August. Doyle is also the director of the multidisciplinary Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, which spans UCSB, MIT, and Caltech. “I am excited to work with SEAS as we chart the course for the future of engineering and applied sciences,” Doyle said.

Edward W. Felten

(BS ’85) Appointed Deputy Chief Technology Officer

by White House In May of this year, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy named Ed Felten as their deputy chief technology officer. Felten, an expert in technology law and policy, is the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, where he is also a professor. Felten is recognized as one of the leading thinkers in computer security and privacy.

Elaine Y. Hsiao

(PhD ’13) Named a 2015 Emerging Explorer by the National Geographic Society Elaine Hsiao was recognized in June as part of the National Geographic magazine’s annual program to highlight scientists and innovators. Hsiao, who joined UCLA as a professor this year, investigates the relationship between the microbiome and the brain. Hsiao is particularly interested in the ways in which microbes affect the nervous system and how microbial therapies may one day be used to treat neurological disorders.

Stephen A. Ross

(BS ’65) Awarded Deutsche Bank Prize In March of this year, the Center for Financial Studies (CFS) named Stephen Ross as the 2015 recipient of the Deutsche Bank Prize, widely regarded as the top honor for researchers of financial economics. The center cited Ross, an MIT professor and Caltech Trustee, for his groundwork and fundamental contributions to the analytical development of financial economics. “The work of Stephen A. Ross has shaped today’s thinking in financial innovation, practice, and policy,” said Jan Pieter Krahnen, the director of CFS.

John K. Stockton

(PhD ’07) Led Quantifind to Raise $12 Million in Funding Based on work he developed at Caltech, John Stockton cofounded the start-up Quantifind, which offers software that tracks online communications to help businesses understand and identify which marketing strategies are most impactful. In 2014, the company secured $12 million in strategic funding.

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Looking for E.T. After five decades hunting for intelligent life in the universe, we have yet to find any evidence. Does it mean there’s nothing out there?

Or do we need to rethink what we’re searching for?

BY SETH SHOSTAK (PHD ’72), SENIOR ASTRONOMER AND DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR SETI RESEARCH ILLUSTR ATION BY ALVARO DOMINGUEZ There are few questions that spark interest as surely

as this one: Are we alone in the cosmos?

The idea of a universe replete with alien beings has widespread allure and probably derives from our evolutionary history. After all, there’s straightforward survival value in learning about an unseen tribe over the next hill. They could be a threat or, on the brighter side, may offer some novel breeding opportunities.

However, and despite our fascination with extraterrestrials, researchers have failed to find any compelling evidence for their existence. Not yet, anyway. But this cheerless fact

has not dampened hope, and there aren’t many scientists or citizens who would assert that Homo sapiens is the only clever species in our galaxy.

Much of the belief in cosmic intelligence is based on an appeal to large numbers. Two decades of work by astronomers has pegged the number of planets studding the Milky Way at roughly one trillion. That’s a staggering amount of acreage, and it requires industrial-strength chutzpah to argue that all these worlds are sterile, or at best, home to nothing more than insensate beasts.

The effort to find these alien beings is known as SETI, the TECHER

[ Transforming ] ESSAY

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. Despite being well known and well regarded, SETI is a niche research activity.

The tally of people—worldwide—whose job description is to seek out aliens is approximately a dozen.

The strategy they use is straightforward. Large antennas—radio telescopes—scan the skies in a hunt for transmissions that are clearly of artificial origin. In other words, the signals must have some narrow-band components to distinguish them from natural radio emitters such as quasars and pulsars. The latter are very broadband and can be “heard” all over the radio dial. In addition, the apparent source of the signals should parade across the sky at the sidereal rate, just as the stars do.

Today’s SETI experiments typically monitor tens to hundreds of millions of simultaneous channels, each only 1 Hz wide. The data are collected, processed, and evaluated entirely by computers running specialized software. This relieves the scientists of the tedium of trying to find E.T. by donning headsets and listening for unusual cosmic static.

But of greater importance, it means that the specialized equipment necessary for SETI can be scaled up as funding and technology permit. Because of the close tie between digital electronics and search speed, the pace of exploration increases rapidly, and experiments fielded by SETI researchers in a given year can often comb through more data than all previous years combined. alumni.caltech.edu

Nonetheless, even after five decades of SETI no confirmed signal has been found. Is there anything to be learned from that?

Commentators outside the field think there is. In particular, they claim that despite the early expectations of many, the sky is not replete with high-powered radio transmitters. These glass-half-empty types will often go further and appeal to an argument known as the Fermi paradox to put this celestial silence into context. Their conclusion is a downer: No one is out there.

That’s a big verdict based on thin evidence. Or rather, on no evidence. The Fermi paradox derives from a remark made in 1950 by the celebrated physicist, Enrico Fermi, who realized that in the very long history of the universe, there’s been more than ample time for an ambitious society to colonize the entire galaxy. Not every civilization has to be so enterprising; if a single species were smitten with the idea of bringing the Milky Way under its wing, then we should expect evidence of its efforts to be visible everywhere, including nearby.

Consequently, more than a few people have stated that SETI’s failure to find E.T.’s radio footprints is important, and strongly suggests that Homo sapiens is the only thinking species within thousands of light-years or more.

Needless to say, such a conclusion smacks of the self-importance that passed for clear thinking before the time of Copernicus. On that basis alone, it should be suspect. It’s also a sweeping judgment based on a very restricted data set. Yes, there have been SETI efforts to find signals for a long time, but those have been both limited and intermittent.

The number of star systems that have been scrutinized over a wide range of frequencies is merely a few thousand. In addition, the sensitivity of even the best of these experiments could detect an omnidirectional galactic transmitter only if it boasted a power level roughly 10,000 times the current energy use of all humanity. That’s a lot of kilowatt-hours.

It’s possible that SETI will book success only when we gain the ability to find far weaker signals. It may be that the sky actually is filled with signal sources. But we won’t discover them until our instruments have far greater sensitivity.

Such a massive improvement in sensitivity is difficult to achieve today but might be a trivial effort in the 22nd century.

Just as Victorian era astronomers couldn’t have discovered quasars despite the fact that they litter the cosmos, it may be that our quest for E.T. is a bit premature.

While such arguments might give pause, they shouldn’t cause pause. Speculation is never a satisfactory substitute for experimentation when trying to find something new.

Given the myriad uncertainties about the activities of extraterrestrials, the search should continue.

However, there is one aspect of the SETI enterprise that is, to my mind, far more consequential than Fermi’s paradox. The assumption made since SETI’s inception is that extraterrestrials are most likely to be resident on a planet that’s not only amenable to life but host to complex life. In other words, a world analogous to our own.

While comfortably conservative, this thesis flies in the face of our own experience. Within two centuries of inventing radio, it’s likely that humankind will invent and build thinking machines. These devices will be able to expand their own capabilities far faster—and to a far greater extent—than soft, squishy biological intelligence.

It’s a disquieting but simple argument: Biological brains will beget synthetic ones. If this technical evolution is commonplace, then there’s reason to expect that the majority of the intelligence in the universe is nonbiological.

In that case, our hunt for extraterrestrials will require more than just new equipment. We’ll need to rethink the nature of our prey.

It’s a disquieting but simple argument: Biological brains will beget synthetic ones.

If this technical evolution is commonplace, then there’s reason to expect that the majority of the intelligence in the universe is nonbiological.

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SETH SHOSTAK (PHD ’72) is the senior astronomer and director of the Center for SETI Research and a widely published author and advocate for science. Shostak has authored four books and published more than 400 popular articles on science that have appeared in a number of publications including the New York Times, Discover magazine, and the Huffington Post. He is also the host of the SETI Institute’s weekly science radio show, “Big Picture Science.”

[ Transforming ] PROFILE

“Most traditional ‘girl toys’ don’t offer play that develops spatial and problemsolving skills, which research has shown lead to greater interest in STEM fields.”

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BETTINA CHEN (BS ’10) with Roominate building set. Chen cofounded the toy company in 2012 to encourage girls’ interest in science, technology, engineering, and math through creative play.

Rethinking the Building Block Toy companies Roominate and Crossbeams, both founded by Caltech alumni, challenge traditional ideas of what a toy is, whom it’s made for, and how it can inspire.

BY LORI DAJOSE (BS ’14) Sydney Fish, age nine,

takes a break from the morning session at her summer camp to build a toy house. Using an arrangement of brightly colored pieces, she assembles the living room: chairs, a table, and a tiny sofa. Then, she does something more—she wires a portion with electricity.

“I just made a fan,” Sydney says, flipping a switch.

A small, battery-powered propeller spins to life, which Sydney makes sure to explain. “I took this circuit and connected it to the motor.

Then these two wires are connected to the battery.”

This isn’t your typical doll house. Sydney is playing with Roominate Chateau, a building toy marketed primarily toward girls, designed to foster an interest in science, technology, engineering, and math, or STEM skills. The San Francisco–based company was founded by Bettina Chen (BS ’10) and Alice Brooks, who bonded while in graduate school together at Stanford.

“We were among a handful of women with

engineering degrees,” Chen recalls. “We thought, ‘Why aren’t there more women like us? And what can we do to change that?’ ” Chen traced her own interest in science to the toys she used as a child: building toys like Lego blocks and Tinkertoys.

Building sets have been used for centuries to drive curiosity and teach spatial relationships. Today, they’re also big business. According to the Toy Industry Association, in 2014 the segment made up 10 percent of the

overall toy market and generated $1.85 billion in sales. That’s a lot of blocks.

Yet most are explicitly marketed toward boys. Of the nearly 2,000 building sets on the website of Toys “R” Us, nearly all—92 percent—are labeled as appropriate or intended for boys, while only 56 percent are similarly categorized as being for girls.

“There’s a big gender gap,” Chen says. “Most traditional ‘girl toys’ don’t offer play that develops spatial and problem-solving skills, which research has shown lead to greater interest in STEM fields,” she says.

Indeed, one study, published in 2001 in the Journal of Research in Childhood Education, found that kids who played with building sets scored higher on standardized math tests.

Chen and Brooks designed Roominate to address that. Children can build houses using batteries and simple motors to include electric fans, elevators, even washing machines. Since its launch in 2012, Roominate has garnered a great deal of TECHER

press. The young founders raised more than $85,000 on Kickstarter, then last fall secured $500,000 in additional funding on the TV show Shark Tank. Forbes declared Roominate one of the “top 10 toys that kindle creativity.”

Michael Doane, an instructor at Sydney’s camp—iD Tech Mini in the San Francisco Bay area, a summer STEM program that specializes in teaching kids technology skills, including programming, video-game design, and robotics—says the effects of building toys like Chen’s Roominate are noticeable. “[They] allow children to think abstractly,” he says.

“That impacts their interest and attention when they return to a project.”

Chen isn’t the only Caltech graduate to become enamored with building sets.

In Colorado Springs, Charles (BS ’95) and Monica Sharman (BS ’95) realized that there was another potentially underserved group—teenagers and preteens. “Most building sets are thought of as ‘kids toys,’ and are sold to children under 11,” says Charles Sharman. “After that, there’s a shift from actively creating with toys to passively consuming.”

The Sharmans, who

began dating while at Caltech and married soon after graduation, launched Crossbeams in 2014, a toy designed for more advanced construction than typical play sets. The pieces, simple white tubes that come in a variety of shapes, can combine in surprisingly sophisticated ways to form models of motorcycles, planes, even a seven-foot-tall Saturn rocket. They’re also strong: twist-lock connections allow models to withstand more than 20 pounds of force. Crossbeams has caught the attention of toy enthusiasts and was recently featured in the tech magazine Gizmag.

The Sharmans see Crossbeams as a link between starter building sets and advanced engineering. “It works as both a toy and as a platform for mechanical prototyping,” Charles Sharman says. “We want to keep children creating. After all, engineers play, too—it’s just that our toys are bigger.”

How effective can toys like this be at developing an interest in science? Time will tell, but back at the camp, Sydney offers an encouraging clue.

Putting the finishing touches on her Roominate house, she smiles and says, “I want to be an engineer.”

INSPIRING STORIES ABOUT ALUMNI MADE POSSIBLE

BY ALUMNI The Caltech Alumni Association thanks its 7,279 members for making this publication possible.

Your membership dollars are what help us to bring you compelling stories about alumni around the globe.

But we don’t just tell stories about alumni. We connect you to them.

We bring faculty to speak in regions across the country, keep you in touch with the latest news from campus, host events to allow you to meet new people and make valuable connections, and help you to build your career network.

All of these activities are member supported. That means we depend on you to make it happen.

Not a member? Please take a moment to join, re-join, or renew today. Help us continue to build a better Alumni Association for all current and future Techers.

Photo: Glenn Asakawa

Join online now at

alumni.caltech.edu/join CHARLES (BS ’95) AND MONICA SHARMAN (BS ’95) developed

Crossbeams as a link between starter building sets and more advanced construction sets. alumni.caltech.edu

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Highly Illogical: The Night Caltech Saved Star Trek 1968: More than 700 students from across Southern California protested the cancellation of the TV show Star Trek by NBC after its second season. The protest was led by Clyde Chadwick (MS ’69), Christopher Parr (PhD ’69), David Lewin (BS ’70), Alan Stein (BS ’71), and Jim Cooper (EX ’71), along with Wanda Kendall from neighboring Pasadena City College. The demonstration earned the series an extra year, and the science-fiction franchise went on to inspire generations of fans—and real space explorers. Leonard Nimoy, who played the iconic Vulcan, Mr. Spock, passed away in February of this year. In October, CBS announced that it would create a new Star Trek series to air in 2017.

PHOTO: HAR RY C HAS E, LO S A NG ELES T IMES WERE YOU THERE? Help us identify people in this photo: alumni.caltech.edu/star-trek-protest

TECHER

ORIGINAL

alumni.caltech.edu

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[ Original ] LEGENDS

STRANGE BREW From right to left: Julie Jester (BS ‘14), Justin Koch (BS ‘15), Talia Minear (BS ‘17), and Samantha “Pixie” Piszkiewicz (BS ‘14)

“The [admitted MIT] prefrosh had no idea.

They happily took the cups.

We started seeing posts on social media later as they figured it out.”

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When You’re Hot, You’re Hot While a student, Julie Jester (BS ’14) helped lead the Caltech Prank Club on a series of escapades with homages to the past and dares to the future. For the second year in a row, the Caltech Alumni Association recognized Jester and fellow pranksters with the Spirit Award.

BY JENNIFER BL ANKENSHIP In April of 2014, Julie Jester stood on the campus of

The Conspirators Members of the Prank Club who infiltrated MIT

Greg Izatt (BS ’14) Michael Jenson (BS ’17) Julie Jester (BS ’14) Justin Koch (BS ’15) Christina Meyer (BS ’17) Talia Minear (BS ’17) Grace Park (BS ’16) Jeff Picard (BS ’15) Samantha “Pixie” Piszkiewicz (BS ’14) Brandon Robinson (BS ’16) Jeff Rosenberg (BS ’17) Jesse Salomon (BS ’14) Nicholas Schiefer (BS ’16)

the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, facing one of the school’s admissions officers. Behind them, a number of Jester’s comrades stood handing out black coffee mugs bearing MIT’s logo to a mob of accepted students during the university’s welcome weekend; a simple gift to the pre-frosh. The admissions officer was doubtful, however, and demanded to see documentation. “Who authorized you to be here?” the official asked.

“Hold on. Let me make a call,” Jester offered, then reached for her phone. The truth was she had no authorization. The coffee cups were contraband, and the gig was almost up—she needed to stall for time.

The superbly named Jester, the youngest of three in her family to attend Caltech (both of her older brothers are also Techers), served as president of the Prank Club in 2013-14, when two memorable capers took place.

The first was in January 2014, when she and more than 200 students erected an enormous “Pasadena” sign overlooking the Rose Bowl during the Championship Series Title Game. After sunset, orange lights embedded within the letters changed the sign to spell out “Caltech,” an homage to two prior spectacles when the word Caltech popped up uninvited: in the stands of the 1961 Rose Bowl, and in 1987 when it overtook the Hollywood sign.

Still, Jester had her sights set on a more distant prize: MIT. The plan was simple: infiltrate the university’s prefrosh weekend and distribute coffee mugs emblazoned with “MIT:

The Institute of Technology.” But the cups were rigged. Fill one with a steaming cup of coffee, and the black background would turn orange, now bearing the phrase “Caltech: The HOTTER Institute of Technology.”

That April, Jester and 12 of her fellow pranksters stood outside MIT’s Rockwell Cage gymnasium and greeted throngs of emerging prospective students with their heatactivated hoax mugs. All went according to plan until officials saw the group and demanded documentation. Jester was able to stall for just enough time to allow her cohorts to hand out 800 mugs, nearly all of their supply, before being shut down.

“The prefrosh had no idea,” Jester said. “They happily took the cups. We started seeing posts on social media later as they figured it out.” The following week, MIT’s student newspaper saluted the stunt on their front page—with a vow to one day return the favor.

On June 12th of this year, Jester was presented with the Caltech Alumni Association’s Spirit Award—for the second year in a row. “After pulling a truly flawless prank, Jester and her team then went the extra mile,” said Dave Tytell (BS ’99), vice president for the Caltech Alumni Association, who works at MIT. “They sought out alumni at MIT and personally delivered mugs to as many of us as they could. It was a highlight of the year.”

Want one for yourself? They’re now available through the Caltech bookstore, which has already sold more than 3,000.

Proceeds from sales go to the Prank Club’s budget, ensuring that at Caltech, there will never be a last laugh.

TECHER

The Stack A little puzzle hunt for your own personal Ditch Day.

BY ISAAC CHAO (AVERY ’10), ALAN DENG (PAGE ’10), JOSH TOLLEFSON (PAGE ’13), GEORGE WANG (PAGE ’08), CHRISTINE WU (PAGE ’13)

Part 1: Photographic You fell asleep while the biology professor was lecturing, and now there’s no rhyme or

reason to the numbered notes you have left. Perhaps the right picture will emerge after some further elaboration?

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Photos: Thinkstock (20); Shutterstock (3); Wikicommons (3); ZUMAPress (2)

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F O R H I N T S , M O R E P U Z Z L E S , A N D T O C H E C K A N S W E R S A L U M N I . C A LT E C H . E D U / S TAC K

[ Original ] EVENTS

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Caltech Across the Country

ILLUSTR ATION BY QUICKHONEY

CHICAGO

BOSTON September. 17, 2014

What’s so funny about Schrodinger’s cat, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and glow-in-thedark jellyfish? Science pundit Dave Zobel shared excerpts from his book, The Science of TV’s the Big Bang Theory, taking Chicago alumni on a tour of TV’s highest-rated sitcom that just happens to be based on the reallife Caltech.

EXPOSING CORRUPTION NEW YORK Nov. 11, 2014 LOS ANGELES March 1, 2015 SAN FRANCISCO April 11, 2015 ORANGE COUNTY June 27, 2015 1

CONVERSATIONS WITH THE PRESIDENT

Caltech’s ninth president, Thomas F. Rosenbaum, held a series of engaging conversations with alumni, parents, and guests to hear their thoughts and perspectives on the Institute.

Aid organizations such as the World Bank commonly profess “zero tolerance” for corruption. But is this commitment credible?

Can we figure out before donating if a company is to be trusted? At Google’s Boston campus, Jean Ensminger, the Edie and Lew Wasserman Professor of Social Science discussed how digit analysis— the science of detecting irregular patterns in budget data—can be used to shine a bright light on corruption in development aid.

September 30, 2015

SCIENCE OF THE BIG BANG THEORY WITH CALTECH AUTHOR DAVE ZOBEL (BS ’84)

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LOS ANGELES

May 14–17, 2015

REUNION WEEKEND AND 78TH ANNUAL SEMINAR DAY

More than 1,450 alumni, students, faculty, family, and TECHER

Photo: Bruce Cook

With more than 150 events held across the nation, including faculty lectures, reunions, career-networking opportunities, and social outings, it’s been a busy year for Caltech alumni.

Here’s a map to some of the engaging topics and conversations the Caltech Alumni Association hosted in regions near you.

“It was wonderful to see such a committed and closeknit group of individuals who mean so much to the Institute,”said Rosenbaum.

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Photo: Left: Courtesy of the Caltech Fund, Right: Alexx Tobeck

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friends returned to campus to catch up with friends and partake in more than 100 events and activities held over four days in May, including Seminar Day and the presentation of the Distinguished Alumni Awards.

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NEW YORK

October 30, 2014

PLANETARY ATMOSPHERES OUTSIDE THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Our knowledge of planets beyond the solar system alumni.caltech.edu

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has, well, skyrocketed over the past decade.

Heather Knutson, assistant professor of planetary science, took New York alumni on a tour of these worlds beyond our solar system, revealing the awe-inspiring efforts to discover their compositions, temperatures, and weather.

Norway, learning how climate and topography influenced the country’s history, culture, and daily life. Led by Mark Simons, professor of geophysics, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences.

NORWAY July 11-18, 2015

FROM LABORATORY CURIOSITY TO A WONDER MATERIAL?

AN ALUMNI JOURNEY TO NORWAY

This summer, more than 20 alumni and guests explored

SAN FRANCISCO AND SILICON VALLEY 4

September 3, 2015

Since its successful isolation in 2004, graphene has been considered a wonder material for both scientific research and technological applications. Nai-Chang Yeh, professor of physics and the Fletcher Jones Foundation codirector of the Kavli Nanoscience Institute, spoke to alumni in San Francisco about her group’s cool singlestep method to grow large

sheets of graphene at room temperature.

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SANTA BARBARA

October 14, 2014

FROM SPINNING BLACK HOLES TO EXPLODING STARS

Fiona Harrison, the Benjamin M. Rosen Professor of Physics and Astronomy (and now chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy) shared with alumni in Santa Barbara the story of the NuSTAR mission now exploring the densest regions in the universe, observing the radioactive glow of debris left over from exploded stars, and helping us to understand how black holes grow.

SEATTLE

June 22, 2015

DELAY-DISTORTION TRADE-OFFS IN

INFORMATION THEORY

Victoria Kostina, assistant professor of electrical engineering, discussed with Seattle alumni the new advances in transmitting large amounts of data quickly and reliably.

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WASHINGTON, DC

September 10, 2014

WHY DID EUROPE CONQUER THE WORLD?

Between 1492 and 1914, Europeans conquered 84 percent of the globe. But why did Europe rise to the top, when for centuries other cultures, particularly in Asia, were more advanced? Philip Hoffman, the Rea A. and Lela G. Axline Professor of Business Economics and professor of history, shared his surprising insights with DC alumni.

J O I N U S AT T H E N E X T E V E N T N E A R YO U A L U M N I . C A LT E C H . E D U / E V E N T S

[ Original ]

CLASS NOTES 1940s ROBERT BENNETT (BS ‘43) is retired after many years as an AT&T manager and a Napa Valley grape grower. He remembers Caltech fondly and keeps up with the latest from his home in North Carolina, where he and his wife enjoy simple pleasures like “racing radio-controlled sailboats on our lake.”

DAVID CALDWELL (BS ‘47) is currently Professor Emeritus and Research Professor in Physics at Stanford University. He continues his active search for dark matter and says of it, “this is now the most exciting it has ever been.”

ARTHUR (BAM) SPAULDING (BS ’49, MS ’58), retired from a long career in oil, now enjoys a musical career, playing in several swing bands in Ventura county.

Spaulding looks forward to celebrating his 90th birthday next year.

1950s

54

MARSHALL KLARFELD (BS ‘51) is now retired from a long career in management and real estate with Global Golf Connection. He is now an author and film producer with a focus on “alternative ancient history.”

ALAN POISNER, M.D. (BS ‘56), is Professor Emeritus at the University of Kansas Medical Center, where he continues active part-time research. This year he remarried and recently added to his collection of gold medals in the sport of race walking.

STEVE ANDREAS (BS ‘57) is an active practitioner, author, and teacher in the field of brief psychotherapy, which aims to address the impact of painful memories. His latest two books, Transforming Negative Self-Talk and More Transforming Negative Self-Talk, are published by W.W. Norton and Company.

RICHARD STARK (BS ‘57, MS ‘58) is now retired after a long career with the Aerospace Corporation. He finds inspiration hosting tours at the Space Shuttle Endeavour exhibit in Exposition Park, Los Angeles.

JOHN ASMUS (BS ’58, MS ’59, PHD ’65) has been a research physicist at the Institute for Pure and Applied Physical Science at the University of California, San Diego since 1974.

Asmus has pioneered the use of holography, lasers, ultrasonic imaging,

and more to art conservation, most notably to examine a painting known as the “Isleworth Mona Lisa.”

DICK VAN KIRK (BS ‘58) is the President Emeritus of the Special Olympics Southern California. He was very active in the planning and preparation of the 2015 World Games in Los Angeles, which attracted nearly 7,000 athletes from 170 countries to compete in 25 sports.

PHIL HARRIMAN (BS ’59), in retirement after a career with the National Science Foundation, is teaching a course this fall at Sonoma State University in California titled Outstanding Women Scientists of the 20th Century. He fondly recalls once, while working at the Athenaeum, serving famed British astrophysicist Margaret Burbidge.

LANNY LEWYN (BS ‘59, MS ‘60) is the principal consultant at Lewyn Consulting Inc. He holds 29 U.S. patents in complementary metal-oxide semiconductors and bipolar circuits, and he is a Life Senior Member of the IEEE. His last ADC circuit block was used in 2009 to fix one that failed on the Hubble Space Telescope.

JOHN STACK (BS ‘59) is Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois, Department of Physics. He retired in 2014 after acting as the associate head of graduate studies from 2005 to 2011.

1960s LAURENCE TRAFTON (BS ‘60, MS ‘61, PhD ‘65) is a senior research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin.

HENRY ABRASH (PhD ‘61) is now retired from his career as a chemistry and biochemistry professor at California State University, Northridge. He is also an active member in the Southern California section of the American Chemical Society and enjoys offering his expertise as a judge in the California State Science Fair.

CLYDE ZAIDINS (BS ‘61, MS ‘63, PhD ‘67) came out of retirement to chair the physics department at the University of Colorado in Denver, where he has spent his entire career.

ALBERT WHITTLESEY (BS ‘62) retired in 2014 after 52 years with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in

Pasadena. “My wife gave me a book about how to keep from being bored in retirement, and I hope to read it when I get time,” he says.

LEE MOLHO (BS ’63) recently published a memoir about one of Caltech’s most notorious pranks, Inside the Great Rose Bowl Hoax.

The book includes numerous photos, including a newly discovered original Kodachrome image that is now available in the Caltech Bookstore (posters and mugs).

WILLIAM MEISEL (BS ‘64) is the president of technical consulting company TMA Associates. He has worked extensively in speech-recognition technology and computer intelligence. He is the author of several books, including The Software Society: Cultural and Economic Impact and most recently a futuristic mystery novel, Technically Dead.

DANA ROTH (MS ’65) is currently a special-projects librarian at Caltech, following more than 45 years as a chemistry librarian. Roth was inducted into the Special Libraries Association Hall of Fame in 2008 and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2014.

ALVAH STRICKLAND (MS ‘65) is now retired from her career in the shipbuilding industry in Hawaii.

CARL SCANDELLA (BS ‘66) is the owner of Carl Scandella Consulting, based in Bellevue, Washington, which offers services to the biotechnology industry—a field he has worked in since 1981.

DANA ANDREWS (MS ‘67) has retired as an affiliate professor in aeronautics and astronautics at Washington University. He is the author of more than 30 papers and holds three patents. He now enjoys traveling the world and visiting his eight grandchildren.

THOMAS J. BUCKHOLTZ (BS ’67) presented at the ninth annual Conference on Nuclear and Particle Physics (NUPPAC) held in Egypt this past October.

CARY DAVIDS (PhD ‘67) has retired after a long career as an academic and a senior physicist at the Argonne National Laboratory.

He is currently a member of a jazz group, aptly named “The Nuclear Jazz Quarktet.”

WILLIAM BLOOM (BS ‘68) and

his wife own Westmore Thoroughbreds LLC. The horses they breed compete on California tracks like Santa Anita and Del Mar. He says that it’s hard work and much is up to chance, but, “the thrill of winning makes it all worthwhile.”

Commission. He has contributed to a variety of nuclear-safety advisory panels, including the International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group after Chernobyl. In 2015, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineers.

ERNESTO MARTIN (MS ‘68) has retired in Florida after a career working on jet propulsion for communications satellites. He now enjoys piloting his plane to islands off the Florida coast.

CHARLES BARBER (BS ‘71) is retired after many years as a researcher, product technical specialist, and data system administrator. He is now pursuing his passion for music by playing the bass and singing rock.

HARVEY BUTCHER (BS ‘69) retired in 2013 from his position as director of the Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the Australian National University, Canberra.

MICHAEL DECKER (BS ’69) plans to retire next year from his current position as the vice president and chief medical officer at Sanofi Pasteur, the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines. Decker is an active pilot and tells us, “I’ve just ordered the parts I need to build another plane.”

1970s BILL BRADLEY (BS ‘70) is soon to step down from a 13-year tenure as chair of the Department of Radiology at UC San Diego.

PHILIP CASSADY (PhD ‘70) is retired from a distinguished career as Senior Technical Fellow with Boeing, where he chaired the Boeing Technical Fellowship from 2003 to 2005. He is a fellow of both the Royal Aeronautical Society and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He was recently recognized by the AIAA with the 2015 Plasmadynamics and Lasers Award for “distinguished contributions to the development of aero-optics and high power laser fluid dynamics.”

DENNIS POCEKAY, M.D. (BS ‘70), retired from his full-time medical practice six years ago to do more teaching. He is now an assistant clinical professor of Public Health Sciences at UC Davis, a tutor for pre-health high-school students, and an instructor for firstyear medical students at the Paul Hom Asian Free Clinic in Sacramento.

DANA POWERS (BS ‘70, PhD ‘75) now serves on the Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory

ALAN BLUMENTHAL (PhD ‘71) is now an agent with Madeline Schaider Real Estate in Marin County.

DEBORAH CHUNG (BS ’73, MS ’73) has developed a new process for 3D metallic printing.

With a patent pending, she is now investigating steps to bring the process to market.

DOUGLAS DUNCAN (BS ’73) is the director of the Fiske Planetarium at the University of Colorado, which just completed a state-of-the-art renovation that now features the ability to screen images 8,000 pixels per inch at 60 frames per second.

Duncan is now beginning to produce original content, “combining a bit of Hollywood with Caltech.”

KEITH KOENIG (MS ’74, PhD ’78) just completed his 37th year as a professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at Mississippi State University (MSU). Koenig advises the rocketdesign team, the MSU Space Cowboys, which placed first at the 2015 Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition.

CHARLES CONNER (BS ‘75) is a biological-sciences technician with the National Park Service at the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona, where he has worked for the past 26 years.

RONALD CARSON (BS ’76) recently reitred after 27 years as a systems engineer. He now teaches part-time for Seattle Pacific University and Missouri University of Science and Technology, and enjoys the additional time he is able to spend with family.

DAYNA SALTER (BS ‘76) has retired from ExxonMobil after 35 years in the oil industry. She now teaches developmental math to TECHER

junior college students in her hometown of Spring, Texas. Salter enjoys the time to pursue her varied interests which include personal training, yoga, piano, and maintaining an active B-17 with the Commemorative Air Force (Gulf Coast Wing).

ELLIOT FISCHER (PhD ‘77) retired from his position as technical manager at LGS Innovation in June.

He now plans to teach math and physics classes.

JUDITH GREENGARD (BS ‘77) is the director of protein bioanalytics and development at Sangamo BioSciences, where she finds herself “back in the gene-therapy arena after all these years.” She is enjoying living in the Bay Area with her family.

1980s GARY TORNQUIST (BS ’81) is a director of product safety for Microsoft in Seattle. Tornquist enjoys time with his son, now 15. “Baseball, Boy Scouts, dating, and driving — yikes!”

STEPHEN WILKOWSKI (MS ’81) celebrated his 35th year at Alcatel-Lucent. He began in 1980 when it was Bell Laboratories [see p.

39] and was part of a group sent to study for one year at Caltech.

CJ BEEGLE-KRAUS (BS ‘82) is a senior scientist focusing on environmental modeling and monitoring at SINTEF, the largest independent research organization in Scandinavia. She currently lives in Norway, working primarily on operational models of well blowouts in the Arctic.

Beegle-Kraus recommends visiting any time of the year, “the land is beautiful and the aurora truly lovely.”

WILLIAM BROWNLIE (PhD ‘82) is chief engineer, senior vice president, and risk-management officer at Tetra Tech in Pasadena, where he has worked for 34 years. During his time at Caltech, Brownlie developed methods on hydraulics and sediment transport that were published by ASCE in the 2007 Sedimentation Engineering Manual 110 and are now in wide use.

ROBERT SHORE (BS ‘82) became a partner at Raines Feldman LLP in January of this year, where he leads the firm’s high-stakes business litigation and patent litigation.

MARCUS CHOWN (MS ‘84) is a London-based writer and alumni.caltech.edu

broadcaster. His latest books, What a Wonderful World: One Man’s Attempt to Explain the Big Stuff and Tweeting the Universe: Tiny Explanations of Very Big Ideas, are published by Faber.

LARRY MEIXNER (BS ’84) leads the U.S.-based research and development subsidiary of Sharp Corporation. Meixner enjoys exploring Japanese culture and is proud to have climbed to the top of Mt. Fuji in 2014.

BRIAN DAVISON (PhD ‘85) is chief scientist for systems biology and biotechnology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he has worked for 30 years.

SHAMIM RAHMAN (MS ‘85) has been with NASA since 1998, where he is currently an engineering manager and the interface lead for the launcher on the Orion spacecraft, NASA’s next vehicle intended to carry a crew into low orbit.

PARKER MACCREADY (MS ‘86) is a physical oceanographer and professor at the University of Washington School of Oceanography. He specializes in coastal and estuarine oceanography, with particular focus on problems like ocean acidification and harmful algal blooms.

JAMES KUYPER (BS ‘89) has worked for NASA contractors for 20 years, specializing in geolocation satellites. After moving to a new home in 2013, he and his wife welcomed twins Allen and Ashlyn early this year.

KEVIN MAHER (PhD ‘89) is a competitive intelligence advisor with Shell, where he has worked on a wide variety of projects and in many capacities for the past 26 years. In the last few years he has focused on play geology, resource scoping and economics, competitive activity and forecasting, and corporate strategy.

1990s SANDEEP JAIN (BS ‘91) is the founder and CEO of MatruWeb, which seeks to create a web editor that will allow users to write code in Hindi and other under-represented languages.

JAY OBERNOLTE (BS ‘92) was elected in 2014 to the California State Legislature Assembly, representing the 33rd District.

JASMINE BRYANT (BS ‘95) is currently a lecturer in chemistry at the University of Washington. She was recently awarded the 2015 Distinguished Teaching Award for Innovation with Technology for her integration of technology and teaching. She was also recognized by the UW Panhellenic Association and Interfraternity Council with the 2013 Most-Engaging Lecturer Award.

KYONG CHRIS OH, M.D., S.C. (MS ‘97), currently works as an internal-medicine physician. He also serves with Guatemala’s Ministry of Health to provide care to remote Mayan villages, developing a sustainable model for the health-care system to train local midwives and health promoters.

MASON PORTER (BS ’98) is a professor of Nonlinear and Complex Systems at the University of Oxford Mathematical Institute.

ASHWIN VASAVADA (PhD ‘98) is a project scientist with the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

Formerly part of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech, he now leads 500 international scientists on a mission to understand the habitability of ancient Mars with the help of the rover Curiosity.

2000s MICAH SITTIG (BS ‘01) teaches physics and calculus at the Ojai Valley School, a private boarding school north of Los Angeles. He recently underwent spinal-fusion surgery but is glad to be back on his feet. Sittig and his wife have three daughters.

LINDA STRUBBE (BS ‘03) is a postdoctoral fellow in science teaching and learning at the University of British Columbia, where she studies the learning process, teaches astronomy and physics, and supports other faculty who wish to improve their own teaching.

TIM LESKO (PhD ‘04) is a support manager with Schlumberger Well Services, where he works on the development of fluid systems, equipment, and extraction processes, facilitating a turn to greener technology in the oil industry. “I get to travel the world and play with full-size Tonka trucks,” he says.

BEN OLSEN (BS ‘06) is a physicist with AOSense in Sunnyvale, California, a company that produces atom-based sensors for timing and navigation.

NICK HUTZLER (BS ‘07) received his PhD in physics from Harvard University in 2014 and is currently a postdoctoral fellow with the Harvard Quantum Optics Center. His work focuses on combining ultracold atoms into polar molecules. He married Mary Wahl (BS ‘08) in June of this year.

ANN MARIE THOMAS (MS ’02, PhD ’07) is the author of Making Makers: Kids, Tools, and the Future of Innovation, now available from Maker Media.

MARY WAHL (BS ‘08) is a postdoctoral fellow of molecular and cellular biology at Harvard University. She is currently pursuing her own research in genetic genealogy while also lecturing part-time for her department. “Since leaving Pasadena, Nick Hutzler (BS ‘07) and I earned our doctorates, got married, and became involved with local Caltech Alumni Association events,” she says.

2010s MORGAN CABLE (PhD ‘10) is a research scientist in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She and her team have recently returned from an expedition to Iceland researching how life colonized a newly formed lava field, the results of which she hopes will help inform a future Mars mission.

HIMANUSHU MISHRA (MS ‘10, PhD ‘13) is an assistant professor in Biological and Environmental Science and Engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. His research investigates “chemical and physical phenomena on the surface of water, such as intermolecular forces, rates of reactions, and specific ion effects.”

CARLOS GONZALEZ (MS ‘12, PhD ‘15) is the chief technology officer of Machine Learning Consultants LLC, a consulting firm that offers services relating to a number of software applications. Gonzales is also a visiting postdoc at Caltech this year.

THOMAS HEAVEY (BS ‘12) is currently a PhD student in the chemistry department of Boston University. He completed his master’s at University of North Carolina in Charlotte in 2014 and was married in February 2015. He and his wife now live in Boston.

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[ Original ]

IN MEMORIAM We mourn the loss of the following members of our Caltech alumni family in 2014–2015.

1937

John R. Austen (BS ’37) Carl B. Johnson (BS ’37,

MS ’44, ENG ’46)

1938

David B. Luckenbill (BS ’38) Robert G. Metzner (BS ’38) August V. Segelhorst (BS ’38) Stanley T. Wolfberg (BS ’38)

1939

Delos E. Flint (BS ’39) Paul L. Smith (BS ’39) Neal W. Thomas (EX ’39) Charles H. Townes (PhD ’39)

1940

Jerome Kohl (BS ’40) Ellis E. Lapin (BS ’40, ENG ’41) Jules F. Mayer (BS ’40, MS ’41)

1941

56

John W. Brookbank

Glen O. Hultgren (PhD ’66) John R. Tucker (BS ’66) Robert K. Weatherwax Jr.

(PhD ’55)

(BS ’66)

PhD ’62)

’47)

MS ’50, PhD ’53) J. Robert Shull (MS ’49) Robert T. Terriere (BS ’49) William W. Ward (MS ’49, PhD ’52) Jean F. Wiren (BS ’49)

Earnest H. Clark Jr. (BS ’46,

1950

MS ’48, ENG ’49) John M. Slye (BS ’45) Robert W. Williams (BS ’45) Thayne H. Young (BS ’45)

1946

Glenn W. Burger (MS ’46, ENG

MS ’47) Arthur F. Gebhart (MS ’46) George A. Hufford (BS ’46) Hal D. McCann (BS ’46) G. Donald Meixner (BS ’46) Edward G. Neale Jr. (BS ’46) Dean P. Stone (BS ’46)

1942

PhD ’51)

John A. Drake (BS ’42, MS ’43) John H. Rubel (BS ’42)

1943

Glenn H. Brown Jr. (BS ’43) Hewitt K. Graham (BS ’43) James B. Hull (BS ’43) Edwin G. Johnsen (BS ’43) Kenneth W. Johnson (BS ’43) David A. Lind (MS ’43, PhD ’48) Lincoln A. Martin (MS ’43) Richard E. McWethy (BS ’43) Orin J. Mead (BS ’43) Lawrence R. Rockwood

(BS ’43) George M. Safonov (BS ’43,

MS ’48, PhD ’49) Robert M. Sherwin (BS ’43,

MS ’50, ENG ’52)

1944

Howard H. Dixon (ENG ’44,

PhD ’51) James G. Kerr (BS ’44) Franklin H. Knemeyer (BS ’44,

MS ’48) Robert W. Lester (BS ’44) Frank H. Moore (MS ’44) Harrison W. Sigworth (BS ’44) Harry W. Stanford (CERT ’44,

MS ’44) John H. Wilson (BS ’44)

1945

Harry W. Brough III (BS ’45,

ENG ’50)

1966

1955

1947

MS ’46)

Ronald Cusson (PhD ’65) Philip Filner (PhD ’65) Jay L. Finkelstein (MS ’65)

G. Richard Morgan (BS ’49) Heinz G. Pfeiffer (PhD ’49) David O. Powell (BS ’49) John R. Reeve Jr. (MS ’49) Charles H. Shaller (BS ’49) Frank H. Shelton (BS ’49,

Edward R. Elko (BS ’45) William F. Gulley (BS ’45) John L. Leech (BS ’45) Carl F. Romney (BS ’45) Harris M. Schurmeier (BS ’45,

Norman H. Caldwell (MS ’41) Carl A. Carlson (BS ’41) Jerome M. Green (BS ’41) Edwin P. Wald (BS ’41) Robert H. Weight (MS ’41) Joseph Weiss (BS ’41) Andrew A. Benson (PhD ’42) Dwain B. Bowen (BS ’42

Acey L. Floyd Jr. (PhD ’54) Lee A. Henderson (BS ’54) James L. Hieatt (MS ’54) Weldon H. Jackson (BS ’54) Donald B. Potter (PhD ’54)

Spencer R. Baen (MS ’47,

PhD ’50) Ellis H. Beymer (BS ’47) John P. Craven (MS ’47) David L. Douglas (BS ’47, Barney Flam (BS ’47) Robert D. Fusfeld (MS ’47) David Hagelbarger (PhD ’47) R. R. Heppe (ENG ’47) John D. Holmgren (BS ’47) Harold W. Kuhn (BS ’47) Frank E. Marble (ENG ’47,

PhD ’48) Return Francis Moore (BS ’47,

MS ’48) Blaine R. Parkin (BS ’47, MS

’48, PhD ’52) Charles W. Rush Jr. (ENG ’47) John R. Scull (BS ’47) John P. Terry (BS ’47) Jack D. Verschoor (MS ’47) Jeptha A. Wade Jr. (BS ’47) Dean A. Watkins (MS ’47)

1948

Galt B. Booth (BS ’50, MS ’51) James C. Goodwyn (MS ’50) Malcolm V. Hickey (BS ’50) Floyd B. Humphrey (BS ’50,

PhD ’56) J. Monroe (MS ’50) John R. Reese (MS ’50) Bruce Robinson Jr. (BS ’50) Martynas F. Ycas (PhD ’50)

1951

John W. Bjerklie (BS ’51) Bert H. Clark (BS ’51) Robert F. Connelly (BS ’51) John H. Lobdell, USN (ENG ’51) Harden M. McConnell (PhD ’51) William F. Sampson (BS ’51) Robert E. Smith (BS ’51) Richard Z. Toukdarian (MS ’51)

1952

Charles P. Benner (MS ’52) Michael J. Callaghan (BS ’52) M. Allen Dickson (MS ’52) Paul H. Hayashi (MS ’52,

ENG ’54) Kenneth Koe (PhD ’52) James K. La Fleur (BS ’52) Ronald T. McLaughlin (MS ’52,

PhD ’58) Roger D. Schaufele (MS ’52) Sedat Serdengecti (MS ’52,

PhD ’55) Robert W. Zwanzig (PhD ’52)

Mitchell L. Cotton (BS ’48) Harvey R. Fraser (MS ’48) Robert C. Gaskell (BS ’48) John N. Harris (BS ’48, MS ’49) Delbert A. Hausmann (BS ’48) Harvey K. Holm (BS ’48) Paul John Howard (BS ’48) Robert C. Lynn (BS ’48) Richard J. Magnus (ENG ’48,

1953

PhD ’55)

MS ’54, ENG ’58) Gerald H. Ross (BS ’53) William M. Smith Jr. (MS ’53) Donald P. Snowden (BS ’53) Nicholas S. Szabo (BS ’53) John S. Waugh (PhD ’53)

Mervin O. Slater (ENG ’48)

1949

Thomas L. Allen (PhD ’49) Warren E. Danielson (BS ’49,

MS ’50, PhD ’52) Albert S. Hook (BS ’49) Paul H. Kidder, USAF (BS ’49) Lionel L. Levy (MS ’49)

Arthur E. Britt (BS ’53) Bert E. Brown (MS ’53) Gerald A. Cohen (MS ’53) John D. Gee (BS ’53) Paul E. Langdon (BS ’53,

MS ’54) Eugene B. Muehlberger (BS ’53) Kenneth F. Nicholson (BS ’53,

1954

G. Edward Bryan (BS ’54) Robert K. Campbell (BS ’54)

Ray A. Hefferlin (PhD ’55) Robert F. Meldau (MS ’55) F. Curtis Michel (BS ’55,

1956

Howard M. Brody (MS ’56,

PhD ’59) Edward M. Davis Jr. (MS ’56) Collis Huntington Holladay Jr.

(BS ’56)

1967

William C. Mitchell (BS ’67) Francis G. Moses (PhD ’67) Nagendra Singh (MS ’67,

PhD ’71)

1968

Robert J. Buck (PhD ’68) Erno S. Daniel (BS ’68) Paul M. Dupont (MS ’68) Willard G. Manning (BS ’68) David J. Shirley (BS ’68)

Theodore G. Johnson (BS ’56) Robert C. Kausen (BS ’56) Charles O. Peinado (MS ’56) Arthur F. Pfeifer (MS ’56) John E. Pollet (BS ’56)

1969

1957

1970

Thomas C. Sorensen (BS ’57,

MS ’58) Charles W. Stephens (MS ’57) Gordon R. Wicker (MS ’57)

1958

Michel A. Bloch (PhD ’58) Harold S. Braham (PhD ’58) Antanas V. Dundzila (MS ’58) Darrell E. Fleischman (BS ’58) Raymond W. Prouty (ENG ’58) Philip D. Thacher (BS ’58)

1959

Don L. Anderson (MS ’59,

PhD ’62)

Samuel A. Bradley (MS ’69) Joseph Rhodes Jr. (BS ’69) Marc E. Boule (BS ’70) Larry R. Waterland (BS ’70)

1971

Joseph R. Bruckner (MS ’71) J. Robert Henderson (PhD ’71) Stephen S. Murray (PhD ’71)

1972

Ronald J. Konopka (PhD ’72)

1973

Mark S. Bohn (MS ’73,

PhD ’76) John J. Dykla (PhD ’73) Jaiyun M. Yuh (PhD ’73)

Clark E. Carroll (BS ’59) Robert J. Kwik (MS ’59) Norton L. Moise (MS ’59,

1974

PhD ’63)

Michael J. Mariani (BS ’74)

Richard C. Montgomery

1975

(BS ’59)

1960

Kenneth E. Harwell

(MS ’60, PhD ’63) Noel W. Hinners (MS ’60) Carl K. Iddings (PhD ’60) Gerry Neugebauer (PhD ’60) Max C. Richardson (MS ’60) William L. Shackleford

(MS ’60, PhD ’64)

1962

Victor S. Engleman (BS ’62) Stephen F. Heinemann (BS ’62) Roy N. Levitch (MS ’62) Orval G. Lorimor (MS ’62) Robert F. Stewart (PhD ’62)

1963

James E. McCoy (BS ’63)

1964

Raul Husid (MS ’64, PhD ’67) Willard O. Keightley (PhD ’64) Thomas H. Wirth (PhD ’64)

1965

Paul D. Batelaan (MS ’65)

Walter De Logi (MS ’74,

PhD ’78)

Michael J. Coggiola (PhD ’75)

1977

Christopher L. Henley (BS ’77)

1979

Harold T. Finney II (BS ’79)

1980

Eric J. Swanson (MS ’80)

1985

Joseph E.L. Campos (MS ’85,

PhD ’87) Michael D. Curtin (BS ’85)

1990

Gary J. Balas (PhD ’90)

1993

Janusz B. Eluszkiewicz (PhD ’93)

1998

Matthew S. McAdams (PhD ’98) Benjamin M. Taskar (EX ’98)

2005

Robert Dirks (PhD ’05)

2015

Gregory P. Harlow (MS ’15) TECHER

[ From the Archives ]

Small Quartz Spectrograph ID #: ST-CH-05, Mfg. Adam Hilger, Ltd., 1930s Instrument used to separate light into frequency spectrum. The signal is recorded using a camera.

Photo: Ben Tomlin

57

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