Hiroo Kanamori, Caltech's John E. and Hazel S. Smits Professor of Geophysics, Emeritus, was awarded the Marcus Milling Legendary Geoscientist Medal by the American Geosciences Institute at the 2015 American Association of Petroleum Geologists Annual Convention and Exposition. The medal recognizes "scientific achievements and service to the Earth sciences having lasting, historic value."

Kanamori is perhaps best known for developing the moment-magnitude scale, which assigns a magnitude to an earthquake based on the amount of energy it releases and which has replaced the Gutenberg-Richter scale for scientific purposes. His research into the genesis and propagation of a diversity of earthquake types, including slow tsunami earthquakes, megathrust earthquakes, outer-rise earthquakes, and intraplate earthquakes, has helped develop hazard-mitigation plans and real-time early-warning methods.

Kanamori earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of Tokyo (BS '59, MS '61, PhD '64) before coming to Caltech as a postdoctoral researcher in 1965. After stints at MIT and the University of Tokyo, he returned to Caltech as a full professor in 1972 and became the Smits Professor of Geophysics in 1989. He served as the director of Caltech's Seismological Laboratory from 1990 until 1998 and became the Smits Professor of Geophysics, Emeritus, in 2005.

Kanamori is also a foreign associate of National Academy of Sciences, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a recipient of the American Geophysical Union's Walter H. Bucher Medal and William Bowie Medal and the Inamori Foundation's Kyoto Prize, and he has been declared a member of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold and Silver Star, by the government of Japan.

Caltech professor of mathematics Nets Katz has received the 2015 Clay Research Award from the Clay Mathematics Institute. The award was given jointly to Katz and his collaborator, MIT professor of mathematics Larry Guth, for their solution of the Erdős distance problem and for "other joint and separate contributions to combinatorial incidence geometry."

Combinatorial incidence geometry is the study of possible configurations, or arrangements, between geometric objects such as points or lines. One basic open problem in this field is the Erdős distance problem, for which Katz received the Clay award. The Erdős distance problem examines a set "large" number of points distributed in various arrangements in a two-dimensional plane. In some configurations, like a lattice or grid, the points are evenly spaced. In others, as in a random distribution of points, the spacing between points is varied. The problem asks how many times the same distance can occur between these points, and what is the minimum number of distinct distances possible between these points.

In 2010, Guth and Katz proved that the minimum number of unique distances between n points, regardless of their spatial configuration, is the number of points n divided by the logarithm of n: n/log(n).

Katz's work on the Erdős problem is an example of his larger research interest in coincidences. By demonstrating that there is a minimum number of unique distances between points, even when in a uniform arrangement like a lattice, Katz showed that coincidences—such as many sets of points having the same distance between them—can occur only a limited number of times.

Katz received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and was a professor of mathematics at Indiana University Bloomington before joining Caltech's faculty in 2013. He was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2012. Previously, his research was in harmonic analysis, a field concerned with representing functions as superpositions of basic oscillating mathematical "waves."

The Clay Mathematics Institute is a private foundation "dedicated to increasing and disseminating mathematical knowledge." Given annually, the Clay Research Award recognizes contemporary mathematical breakthroughs.

On the Caltech campus, a number of initiatives are under way to help achieve the Institute's goal of reducing its ecological footprint, including water conservation efforts and infrastructure upgrades to increase energy efficiency. Caltech's Resnick Sustainability Institute takes a broader view, encouraging and supporting science and engineering breakthroughs that can positively alter sustainability worldwide.

To that end, last year the Resnick Institute inaugurated the Resonate Awards as a way to draw attention to important work by early-career researchers and emerging leaders in green innovation—work that is often overlooked among other advances in technology. In line with the Resnick Institute's aim to advance research in sustainability science, this year's awards honored five innovators with creative solutions for reducing large sources of carbon dioxide—a greenhouse gas and contributor to climate change.

In their work, the honorees addressed several key areas in which innovations in technology can have a significant impact on reducing energy-related carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change, such as improving the efficiency of energy systems and electronic devices, advancing clean-energy technologies, and pioneering methods to turn waste CO₂ into a useful industrial product.

The 2015 Resonate Awards went to

• Stanford University's Yi Cui for his work in the design of nanomaterials for energy conversion and storage.
• Joel L. Dawson from Eta Devices for his contributions to solving power challenges in the cellular communications industry.
• Tsutomu Ioroi from the Research Institute of Electrochemical Energy/National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan for his work in advancing materials for the next generation of fuel cells.
• Mika Järvinen from Aalto University in Finland for inventing a CO₂ sequestration process that converts a steel-manufacturing by-product into a valuable industrial resource.
• Delia J. Milliron from the University of Texas at Austin for using nanomaterials to improve the carbon-reduction capabilities of smart windows.

The winners participated in a panel discussion on July 3rd at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colorado focused on how technological innovations can make an impact on global challenges.

"These talented scientists are producing innovations that make a tremendous positive impact on the environment. The goal of the Resonate Awards is to focus attention on creative people tackling these very tough problems," says Harry Atwater, Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science and director of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis at Caltech, as well as the founder of the Resonate Awards program.

In addition to honoring the rigorous scientific achievements of these individuals, the awards are also meant to celebrate the use of creativity to solve some of the world's biggest energy and environmental problems—an important part of the Resnick Institute's mission to change the balance of the world's sustainability.

"Challenges in sustainability are becoming increasingly visible on many fronts—from the Vatican to new government agreements and plans in the lead up to the upcoming Paris Cop21 climate talks," said Neil Fromer, executive director of the Resnick Sustainability Institute. "These awards shine a light on a wide range of new technology solutions designed to meet these challenges."

Caltech professors Alexei Kitaev and Christopher Umans have been named Simons Investigators. These appointments are given annually to "support outstanding scientists in their most productive years, when they are establishing creative new research directions." Investigators receive $100,000 annually for five years.

Alexei Kitaev, the Ronald and Maxine Linde Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, studies quantum computation and related areas of theoretical physics. He was recognized for helping to found the field of topological quantum computing, which involves theoretical computing devices that use a type of elementary particle called an anyon to do computations.

"The central idea is to protect quantum information from errors by encoding it in a collective state of many electrons called a 'topological quantum phase,'" Kitaev says. "I proposed a scheme whereby a piece of quantum information is stored in a pair of particles called Majorana modes at the ends of a microscopic wire. This idea has been elaborated by other physicists and is now being tested experimentally."

In 2012, Kitaev received the $3 million Fundamental Physics Prize for his work developing algorithms and theories to enable quantum computing. A member of Caltech's Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, he was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2008.

Chris Umans, a professor of computer science, studies complexity theory, a field that aims to determine rigorously the possibilities and limitations of computation. "Computational complexity attempts to answer the question: 'What is computationally feasible given limited computational resources?'" he says.

Umans was noted by the Simons Foundation for his work on matrix multiplication, a prominent problem that involves the devising of optimal algorithms for multiplying two n-by-n matrices. The citation also noted his development of a "novel algorithm for polynomial factorization."

"The Simons award was a complete surprise! I am honored to be recognized in this way and grateful to the Simons Foundation for their support," he says. "Long-term support like this allows researchers to really focus on difficult, long-term problems, and this is incredibly valuable, especially in these fields that are filled with deep, foundational open questions."

Umans also received an NSF CAREER award in 2004 and an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 2005.

The Simons Foundation was founded in 1994 by Jim and Marilyn Simons to advance research in mathematics and the basic sciences. In 2012, the Simons Foundation awarded fellowships to Hirosi Ooguri, the Fred Kavli Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics and Director of Caltech's Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, and former professor of astrophysics Christopher Hirata (BS '01), now a professor of physics at Ohio State University.

Alexei Kitaev, the Ronald and Maxine Linde Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, has been awarded the 2015 Dirac Medal and Prize from the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP). The prize, named after the esteemed theoretical physicist and Nobel Laureate Paul Dirac, is one of the most prestigious honors in theoretical physics. This year it was awarded jointly to Kitaev, Gregory W. Moore of Rutgers University, and Nicholas Read of Yale University for their work on condensed matter research.

The work of Kitaev, Moore, and Read has "played a fundamental role in recent advances in our understanding of the quantum states of matter and quantum entanglement theory," according to the ICTP's press release.

Kitaev is cited for proposing an innovative method of computation, called topological quantum computation, which builds upon Moore and Read's theory of non-Abelian anyons. Anyons are special quasiparticles that exist under the conditions of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE). The FQHE is observed in semiconductor structures that contain a thin layer of mobile electrons. When such systems are cooled to very low temperatures and immersed in a strong magnetic field, the electrons form a collective state analogous to a liquid.

"Anyons are like bubbles and lumps in that liquid, which can move around, fuse, or annihilate," Kitaev explains. "However, these quasiparticles have very strange properties: they carry a fractional electron charge and defy the textbook classification into bosons and fermions. For bosons, such as photons, switching the places of two identical particles has no effect, while for fermions like electrons or protons, the particle exchange introduces a minus sign into the calculation. Switching the places of two identical anyons results in an extra factor other that 1 or -1."

"Non-Abelian anyons are even weirder because their state is not determined by where they are spatially; there is also some hidden state in the liquid between them. Exchanging two particles or moving one around the other alters that state."

As part of his proposed method of topological quantum computation, Kitaev suggested that using this hidden state as a quantum computer memory could make such computation more stable and error proof.

"Kitaev's work on fault-tolerant quantum computation using topological quantum phases with non-Abelian quasiparticles has had profound implications in quantum information theory," the award citation notes.

Caltech faculty who have previously been awarded the Dirac Medal are John H. Schwarz, the Harold Brown Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus, in 1989; and John Hopfield, the Roscoe G. Dickinson Professor of Chemistry and Biology, Emeritus, in 2001.

Graduate student Nathan Belliveau has been selected as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute International Student Research Fellow. Awardees are graduate students in the sciences and will receive $43,000 annually through their third, fourth, and fifth years of predoctoral study. This year, HHMI selected 45 new fellows from 329 applications.

Belliveau applies techniques from DNA sequencing as well as ideas from information theory to the study of gene regulation, the processes by which cells trigger or inhibit the production of RNA and proteins. "I'm examining several bacterial genes that have been implicated in antibiotic resistance," he says. "In the future I hope to continue studying aspects of regulation, but with a focus on understanding how these details support interactions between microbes and other organisms."

"I have been astonished at the rate at which he has brought new technologies, such as the routine use of mass spectrometry and genome editing with CRISPR, into my group," says Rob Phillips, the Fred and Nancy Morris Professor of Biophysics and Biology, and Belliveau's advisor. "Each time he introduces one of these techniques, it brings us that much closer to our ambition of being able to read the regulatory logic of genomes at will."

Belliveau completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Waterloo in Canada before coming to Caltech. "When I applied for the HHMI award I was forced to thoroughly consider my proposed research direction, and it has provided me with a boost of confidence knowing that those examining the applications agree with its importance," Belliveau says. "I was very happy to hear I was awarded this funding."

"Nathan is a truly outstanding student who surprises me nearly every time I talk to him by his experimental talent, his creative thinking, and how fast he gets things done," Phillips says. "He is one of those exceptional people who has a Midas touch. I have so far not seen him touch a single thing that doesn't turn out way better than I had imagined."

Yuk Yung, the Smits Family Professor of Planetary Science, has received the 2015 Gerard P. Kuiper Prize from the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences. The prize, given for outstanding contributions to the field of planetary science, recognizes Yung's work on atmospheric photochemistry, global climate change, radiative transfer, atmospheric evolution, and planetary habitability.

"His unique integration of observations, laboratory data, and quantitative modeling has yielded pioneering insights into the characterization, origin, and evolution of atmospheres in the solar system," the award citation notes.

Yung joined the Caltech faculty in 1977. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. A longtime collaborator with scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Yung is a coinvestigator on the Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer Experiment on the Cassini mission to Saturn and on the Orbital Carbon Observatory-2, a project to map CO2 concentrations on Earth.

Previous recipients of the Kuiper Prize include Professor of Planetary Science Andrew Ingersoll; Peter Goldreich, the Lee A. DuBridge Professor of Astrophysics and Planetary Physics, Emeritus; and Eugene M. Shoemaker, Caltech alumnus (BS'47, MS '48) and former chair of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences.

Arthur B. McDonald (PhD '70), 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.

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. In order to make the math work, he gave it no charge, almost no mass, and only the weakest of interactions with ordinary matter. Billions of them are coursing through our bodies every second, and we are entirely unaware of them.

There are three types of neutrinos—electron, muon, and tau—and they were, for many years, assumed to be massless and immutable. 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. Its detector, which counts muon neutrinos and records their direction of travel, found fewer cosmic-ray neutrinos coming up through the Earth than from any other direction. Since they should not be affected in any way by traveling through the 12,742-kilometer diameter of our planet, Kajita and his colleagues concluded that the extra distance had given them a little extra time to change their identities.

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 must have a nonzero 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 three particle types are aligned when the particle is formed, but as they propagate they get out of synch. 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 Bradley W. Filippone, professor of physics and 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, he 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 became the director of the SNO. In 2006, he became the holder of the Gordon and Patricia Gray Chair in Particle Astrophysics, a position he held until his retirement in 2013.

Among many other awards and honors, McDonald is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Royal Society of Canada, and of Great Britain's Royal Society. He is the recipient of the Killam Prize in the Natural Sciences; the Henry Marshall Tory Medal from the Royal Society of Canada, its highest award for scientific achievement; and the European Physics Society HEP Division Giuseppe and Vanna Cocconi Prize for Particle Astrophysics.

To date, 34 Caltech alumni and faculty have won a total of 35 Nobel Prizes. Last year, alumnus Eric Betzig (BS '83) received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Caltech physicist David Hsieh, who devises and builds new laser-based instruments in order to identify, understand, and manipulate novel phases of matter, has been awarded a Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering. These fellowships, awarded annually by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, "provide early-career scientists with flexible funding and the freedom to take risks and explore new frontiers in their fields,"according to the foundation.

Hsieh, an assistant professor of physics, is one of 18 new Packard Fellows who will receive individual grants of $875,000 distributed over five years.

Hsieh received the news that he had been selected as a fellow at a casual meeting with Fiona Harrison, the new chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy, at the Red Door Café on campus. He was completely caught off guard. "I thought we were just meeting to talk about how things were going," he says. "Then partway through our conversation, Fiona's phone rang, and I asked if I should leave to give her some privacy. She said, 'No, you should stay. This person wants to talk to you.'"

On the other end was Xiao-Wei Wang, Packard Fellows program manager at the Foundation. Hsieh recounts that Wang asked if he was sitting in a comfortable place and then told him the good news.

Hsieh says he is honored by the recognition and excited about the freedom that the grant will provide. "Both the sum and the flexibility with which these funds can be used gives me a very unique opportunity to pursue the riskiest branches of physics that I'm interested in," he says.

He plans to explore the possibility of using light to alter the electronic phase of materials in order to manipulate their macroscopic properties. For example, he says, "Can I use electromagnetic radiation to change something from a metal to an insulator, or from a magnet to a nonmagnet?" If such tailoring of materials properties with light is possible, it could open the door to the creation of more powerful and more versatile electronic devices, potentially at a lower energy cost.

"I'm thrilled that David has won this prestigious award. It will give him the flexibility to pursue high-risk, high-reward projects," says Fiona Harrison, the Kent and Joyce Kresa Leadership Chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy and the Benjamin M. Rosen Professor of Physics. "Being there when he heard the news was definitely a highlight of my job as division chair so far."

Hsieh earned his BS in physics and mathematics in 2003 from Stanford University and his PhD from Princeton University in 2009. He was a Pappalardo Fellow at MIT before joining the Caltech faculty in 2012.

He joins 23 other current Caltech researchers who have been named Packard Fellows since the program's inception in 1988. To date, the Packard Foundation, a private family foundation created in 1964 by Hewlett-Packard Company cofounder David Packard and his wife, Lucile, has awarded $362 million to support 541 scientists and engineers from 52 national universities. Each year, participating universities are invited to nominate two faculty members for consideration by the 12-member Fellowship Advisory Panel of internationally recognized scientists and engineers, which recommends nominees for approval by the Packard Foundation Board of Trustees. 

Professor of Physics David Hitlin has been awarded the 2016 W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics from the American Physical Society. The $10,000 prize, established in 1985, is given annually to recognize achievements in high energy particle physics. The 2016 prize is shared with Jonathan Dorfan, Stephen Olsen, and Fumihiko Takasaki "for leadership in the BABAR and Belle experiments, which established the violation of CP symmetry in B meson decay, and furthered our understanding of quark mixing and quantum chromodynamics," according to the prize citation.

Hitlin was the founding spokesperson of the BABAR collaboration, and Dorfan directed the construction of the PEP-II asymmetric B factory and was also the technical coordinator during construction of BABAR. Dorfan is the director emeritus of the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and president of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. BABAR is a particle detector designed to study unstable elementary particles called neutral B mesons, composed of a third-generation bottom quark and a down quark.

BABAR, and a similar experiment called Belle, carried out simultaneously at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization in Tsukuba, Japan, led by Stephen Olsen and his colleague Fumihiko Takasaki, made the first measurements of the time-dependent Charge-Parity (CP)-violating asymmetry in the rare decay of neutral B mesons to a J/psi meson and a short-lived neutral K meson. These results established the validity of the model of Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa, who showed that if there were three families of quarks, there would be a CP-violating phase. This phase could cause a difference in the decay rate of neutral B mesons and their antiparticles to this final state. This CP-violating phase could help explain why our universe is dominated by matter, while at the time of the Big Bang there were equal amounts of matter and antimatter.

In 2001, BABAR and Belle convincingly measured this CP-violating phase, finding its value to be consistent with the predictions of the model. Kobayashi and Maskawa subsequently shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2008 for "the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature."

"This is an award that is long overdue," says Mark Wise, Caltech's John A. McCone Professor of High Energy Physics. "The measurements by BABAR and Belle of CP non-conservation in B decays showed that the CP non-conservation observed in weak decays is intimately connected with the generation of mass for the quarks. It didn't have to be that way, and this discovery was a milestone achievement in particle physics."

While BABAR ended data taking in 2008, the analysis of the data set continues and so far has led to 550 published papers. BABAR has subsequently refined and extended its measurements to many other B meson decays as well as charm meson and tau lepton decays, that have provided compelling evidence for the validity of the Standard Model of elementary particle physics, which unifies into a single theory the smallest building blocks of matter and three of nature's four forces.

"This award recognizes the contributions of more than 600 physicists and engineers from 75 institutions in 13 countries," Hitlin says. "I was fortunate to have the opportunity to lead this extraordinary collaboration."

Hitlin arrived at Caltech in 1979 as an associate professor and became a full professor in 1986. He was the principal investigator of the Caltech High Energy Physics group from 1994 to 2010 and is a Fellow of the American Physical Society.

The name BABAR is not an acronym, as are the names of most high energy physics experiments. Rather, it is derived from the name of the elephant Babar, the main character of a set of children's books, and refers to the B and anti-B (Bbar) mesons, which are at the heart of the experiment. 

Fifty years ago on October 21, 1965, Caltech's Richard Feynman shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. The three independently brokered workable marriages between 20th-century quantum mechanics and 19th-century electromagnetic field theory.

Quantum electrodynamics, as this previously reluctant partnership is known, treats the behavior of electromagnetic fields in the same manner as it treats the behavior of the electrons producing them—as particles, whose interactions can be described using probability theory. (In this case, the particles are little packages of electromagnetic energy called photons, which we usually think of as particles of light.) The so-called probability amplitude for anything more elaborate than an isolated hydrogen atom is far too complex to solve directly, so the standard quantum-mechanics approach is to start with a solvable, relatively simple equation and keep adding smaller and smaller corrections to it according to well-defined rules. The solution gets closer and closer to the actual answer as the corrections diminish in size, so you simply decide how accurate you need to be for the task at hand. However, describing an electromagnetic field in such a manner means allowing the photons to carry infinite momentum, and it had become clear by the late 1930s that such equations did not converge on the correct answer—adding corrections merely piled infinities upon infinities.

While Schwinger and Tomonaga used highly mathematical approaches to the problem, Feynman characteristically took a different point of view. He drew pictures of every possible interaction between photons and electrons, including those involving "virtual" particles undetectable by the outside world. For example, an electron can spontaneously emit and reabsorb a photon—a self-interaction that contributes appreciably to the electron's mass. And a photon can transmute into an electron and its antimatter twin, the positron, with the two immediately annihilating each another to produce a new photon and helping to create the so-called vacuum energy that pervades empty space. Far more complex pictures are possible—and usually necessary. These iconic doodles, now called Feynman diagrams, allowed him to calculate each scenario's probability amplitude independently and add them all up to get the correct answer.

Back in the 1960s, Nobel laureates got a congratulatory 9:00 a.m. telegram from Stockholm rather than a 3:00 a.m. phone call. Even so, Feynman was awakened at 3:45 a.m. by a reporter who broke the news to him, then asked, "Aren't you pleased to hear that you've won the prize?""I could have found out later this morning," the groggy Feynman replied. "Well, how do you feel, now that you've won it?" the reporter persisted.

At the customary press conference held at a more reasonable hour at Caltech's faculty club, the Athenaeum, a reporter asked, "Is there any way your work can be explained in layman's terms?""There certainly must be," Feynman replied. "But I don't know what it is."

Feynman was a master teacher with a flair for showmanship, and for him to be at a loss for words—even in jest—may have been a first. The final installment of his textbook The Feynman Lectures on Physics had come out that June. Distilled from the Physics 1 and 2 course sequence he had taught to 180 Caltech freshmen in 1961–62 and to the same group as sophomores the following year, the work's three volumes appeared in 1963, 1964, and 1965. The lectures, a complete reimagining of introductory physics, had been motivated by the rapid pace of discoveries in the field in the 1950s and by the improvements in high-school mathematics instruction brought on by the space race—which the Soviets were winning in 1961 by a score of three to nothing, having successively put the first satellite, the first animal (Laika the dog), and the first human (Yuri Gagarin) into orbit.

"A substantial number" of Caltech's physics faculty had proffered outlines of topics the two-year course should cover, wrote professor Robert Leighton (BS '41, MS '44, PhD '47) in the foreword to the series. He noted that the hundred-plus lectures were envisioned as "a cooperative effort by N staff members who would share the total burden symmetrically and equally: each man would take responsibility for 1/N of the material, deliver the lectures, and write text material for his part." This unworkable scheme was quickly abandoned after physics professor Matthew Sands volunteered Feynman for the entire job. Feynman agreed—on the condition that he did not have to write anything. Instead, each lecture was audiotaped and transcribed, and every diagram was photographed. "It was expected that the necessary editing would be minor . . . to be done by one or two graduate students on a part-time basis. Unfortunately, this expectation was short-lived," Leighton wrote. In fact, it "required the close attention of a professional physicist for from ten to twenty hours per lecture!" Leighton and Sands worked on it by turn, with Feynman doing the final edit himself.

In the end, however, it was all worth the effort. More than 1.5 million sets of the iconic, bright red volumes have been sold in English alone, and at least a dozen translations into other languages exist. The book has gone through three editions and remains in print to this day; on September 13, 2013 Caltech posted a freely available electronic version whose equations and graphics scale automatically to the reader's device. In the 25 months since then, the site has been accessed more than eight million times by nearly 1.7 million individuals.

Two Caltech alumni, Arthur McDonald (PhD '70) and Ian Agol (BS '92), have been named recipients of 2016 Breakthrough Prize awards. The prizes, which each carry a monetary award of $3 million, are given annually for achievements in mathematics and science to "encourage more pioneering research and celebrate scientists as the heroes they truly are," says Mark Zuckerberg, one of the prizes' founders.

The 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics was awarded collectively to a community of more than 1,300 physicists who participated in five experiments investigating neutrinos, one of the most abundant particles in the known universe. McDonald—a 2015 Nobel laureate—was one of the seven scientists who led these experiments, heading the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory collaboration in Ontario. Neutrinos are unaffected by the two strong fundamental forces of nature—electromagnetism and the strong nuclear force—and are thus elusive, traveling through the universe essentially unimpeded and near the speed of light.

McDonald is currently Professor Emeritus at Queen's University and earlier this year shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for "the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass."

Ian Agol received the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics for his "spectacular contributions to low-dimensional topology and geometric group theory, including work on the solutions of the tameness, virtual Haken and virtual fibering conjectures." Low-dimensional topology is a field that focuses on manifolds—objects that seem flat when observed at a small scale—in four or fewer dimensions. Earth is one example of a manifold—while it is actually spherical, we humans are too small to be able to perceive Earth's curvature, and thus Earth appears flat to us.

Agol is a professor of mathematics at UC Berkeley and is currently a visiting researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

The Breakthrough Prize was founded by Sergey Brin of Google, and Anne Wojcicki of 23andMe; Jack Ma of Alibaba, and Cathy Zhang; Yuri Milner, a venture capitalist and physicist, and Julia Milner; and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Priscilla Chan. The awards were presented at a ceremony in San Francisco on November 8.

Previous Caltech winners include Alexei Kitaev, the Ronald and Maxine Linde Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics, and John H. Schwarz, the Harold Brown Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus, who won the Fundamental Physics prize in 2012 and 2014 respectively. Alexander Varshavsky, the Howard and Gwen Laurie Smits Professor of Cell Biology, received the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences in 2014.

Barry M. Simon, the International Business Machines (IBM) Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Caltech, has been awarded the 2016 Leroy Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement of the American Mathematical Society (AMS) for his "tremendous impact on the education and research of a whole generation of mathematical scientists through his significant research achievements, highly influential books, and mentoring of graduate students and postdocs," according to the prize citation.

In conferring the award, the AMS noted Simon's "career of exceptional achievement," which includes the publication of 333 papers and 16 books. Simon was specifically recognized for proving a number of fundamental results in statistical mechanics and for contributing to the construction of quantum fields in two space‐time dimensions—topics that, the AMS notes, have "grown into major industries"—as well as for his "definitive results" on the general theory of Schrödinger operators, work that is crucial to an understanding of quantum mechanics and that has led to diverse applications, from probability theory to theoretical physics. He has also made fundamental contributions to the theory of orthogonal polynomials and their asymptotics.

"Barry Simon is a powerhouse in mathematical physics and has had an outstanding career which this award attests to," says Vladimir Markovic, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Mathematics. "Caltech is lucky to have him."

"Barry is a driving force in mathematics at Caltech and has had enormous influence as a scholar, a teacher, and a mentor," says Fiona Harrison, the Benjamin M. Rosen Professor of Physics and holder of the Kent and Joyce Kresa Leadership Chair for the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy.

Simon spoke at the International Congress of Mathematics in 1974 and has since given almost every prestigious lecture available in mathematics and physics. He was named a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005, and was among the inaugural class of AMS fellows in 2012. In 2015, Simon was awarded the International János Bolyai Prize of Mathematics by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, given every five years to honor internationally outstanding works in mathematics, and in 2012, he was given the Henri Poincaré Prize by the International Association of Mathematical Physics. The prize is awarded every three years in recognition of outstanding contributions in mathematical physics and accomplishments leading to novel developments in the field.

Simon received his AB from Harvard College in 1966 and his doctorate in physics from Princeton University in 1970. He held a joint appointment in the mathematics and physics departments at Princeton for the next decade. He first arrived at Caltech as a Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Visiting Scholar in 1980 and joined the faculty permanently in 1981. He became the IBM Professor in 1984.

Yuki Oka, an assistant professor of biology, has been awarded a grant from the Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr. Foundation, given to "support early stage investigators engaged in biomedical research that has the potential to significantly advance the understanding, diagnosis, or treatment of disease," according to the foundation website. The grant will provide $60,000 per year for three years.

"I'm thrilled by being selected for the 2015 Mallinckrodt Grant," says Oka, whose lab uses thirst and water-drinking behavior as a simple model system to study how the brain monitors internal water balance and generates signals that drive appetitive behaviors. The long-term goal of the work is to understand how the brain integrates information about the internal body state and external sensory information to maintain homeostasis (a state of internal equilibrium). The research, he notes, will provide a framework for studying the mechanisms that govern innate behaviors such as eating and drinking. Currently, an estimated 30 million people in the U.S. suffer from appetite disorders including polydipsia and bulimia, characterized by excessive water and food intake, respectively. Identifying neural circuits underlying appetite may offer insights into safe treatments for associated disorders, he says.

Oka received his PhD from the University of Tokyo and was a postdoctoral researcher at UC San Diego and Columbia University before joining the Caltech faculty in 2014. He was named a Searle Scholar in April 2015.

Past Mallinckrodt grantees from Caltech include Sarkis Mazmanian, the Luis B. and Nelly Soux Professor of Microbiology; David Prober, assistant professor of biology; Mitchell Guttman, assistant professor of biology; and Viviana Gradinaru, assistant professor of biology and biological engineering.

Senior Bianca Lepe, a bioengineering major from Granada Hills, California, has been named a Marshall Scholar, winning one of the most coveted fellowships for study in the U.K. The Marshall Scholarship is widely considered one of the most prestigious scholarships in the world. Approximately 1,000 Americans, mostly graduating seniors, apply for, at most, 40 fellowships awarded each year. The Marshall Scholarship provides funding for two years of post-bachelor's degree study at any university in the United Kingdom. The Marshall Aid Commemoration Commission, which oversees the fellowship, provides many cultural opportunities for Marshall Scholars during their tenure as scholars.

Lepe will spend the 2016–2017 academic year at the University of Edinburgh studying for a master's degree in synthetic biology and the following year at Imperial College London, completing a master's degree in science communication.

The Marshall Scholarship was founded by a 1953 Act of Parliament and named in honor of U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall. The scholarships "commemorate the humane ideals of the Marshall Plan and the fellowships express the continuing gratitude of the British people to their American counterparts."

The British Marshall Commission website says, "As future leaders, with a lasting understanding of British society, Marshall Scholars strengthen the enduring relationship between the British and American peoples, their governments and their institutions. Marshall Scholars are talented, independent and wide-ranging, and their time as Scholars enhances their intellectual and personal growth. Their direct engagement with Britain through its best academic programmes contributes to their ultimate personal success."

At Caltech, Lepe has participated in research with the Elizabeth W. Gilloon Professor and Professor of Chemistry James Heath, developing a diagnostic tool to detect a specific protein that causes malaria, and with President Emeritus and the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biology David Baltimore, studying RNA and immunology. In 2014, Lepe was a member of the Caltech's undergraduate iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) team, which participated in an international competition to create artificial biological systems from a kit of standard biological parts. "Our project's goal was to implement a nonnative gene circuit system in E. coli to manufacture a biological compound and regulate its concentration outside the cell," Lepe says. "We had the chance to attend the iGEM Jamboree to present our research, for which we received a bronze medal."

Lepe's experiences on the iGEM team spurred her interest in synthetic biology, which she will pursue at the University of Edinburgh during the first year of her Marshall Scholarship. "Edinburgh is unique because it has a research center, called SynthSys, which specializes in translating research into commercial applications—a skill I hope to gain while there," she says.

During the second year of her fellowship, Lepe will delve into the art of communicating science to the public. "When I study science communication at Imperial College, it will be beyond the traditional forms of communication into broader mediums and topics, such as television, ethics, and science policy. The skill sets I will gain at these universities will enable me to be an effective communicator and scientist as I pursue a career in synthetic biology."

"Bianca Lepe has excelled in many areas at Caltech: classes, research, leadership, student government. She has reinvigorated the Caltech Latino Association of Students in Engineering and Sciences, and she chairs the undergraduate student advisory board for Title IX efforts," says Lauren Stolper, director of fellowships advising and study abroad and the Career Development Center. "Bianca's two years in the U.K. will surely be a formative experience as a scientist and as a leader in communicating science to the public. Her Marshall Scholar win is well deserved, and Bianca will take full advantage of the experience."

In May 2015, Lepe received the Caltech Deans' Cup—an award presented to undergraduates "whose concern for their fellow students has been demonstrated by their persistent efforts to improve the quality of undergraduate life and by effective communication with members of the faculty and administration."

"Bianca has been a great student, a real leader with strong values and a wonderful friend to her peers," says Barbara Green, the Interim Dean of Undergraduate Students. "I delighted that she won the Marshall and will miss her next year."

International travel will not be too "foreign" for Lepe—in the autumn of 2014, she studied abroad at University College London. Additionally, she has traveled to India as a part of the Caltech Y's India-Ki-Khoj program in 2013.

Previous Caltech Marshall Scholars include current Marshall Scholar Adam Jermyn (BS '15) now studying for a PhD in astronomy at the University of Cambridge, Emma Schmidgall (BS '07), Wei Lien Stephen Dang (BS '05), Vikram Mittal (BS '03), and Eric Tuttle (BS '01). Other former Marshall Scholars in the Caltech community include Sterl Phinney (BS '80), professor of theoretical astrophysics; Thomas Everhart, President Emeritus; Edward Stolper, the Carl and Shirley Larson Provostial Chair and William E. Leonhard Professor of Geology; Jonas Peters, the Bren Professor of Chemistry and director of the Resnick Institute; and Thomas Miller, professor of chemistry.

Erik Winfree (PhD '98) and Jay R. Winkler (PhD '84) have been elected as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Winfree, a professor of computer science, computation and neural systems, and bioengineering, was recognized by the AAAS for his "foundational contributions to biomolecular computing and molecular programming." Winkler is a faculty associate and lecturer in chemistry in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, as well as the director of the Beckman Institute Laser Resource Center. He was elected for "distinguished contributions to the field of electron transfer chemistry and the development of its applications in biology, materials science, and solar energy."

Winfree's research with biological computing aims to "coax DNA into performing algorithmic tricks," he says. An algorithm is a collection of mechanistic rules—information—that directs the creation and organization of structure and behavior. In biology, information in DNA can be likened to an algorithm: it encodes instructions for biochemical networks, body plans, and brain architectures, and thus produces complex life. The Winfree group is developing molecular engineering methods that exploit the same principles as those used by biology: they study theoretical models of computation based on realistic molecular biochemistry, write software for molecular system design and analysis, and experimentally synthesize promising systems in the laboratory using DNA nanotechnology.

"We are seeking to create a kind of molecular programming language: a set of elementary components and methods for combining them into complex systems that involve self-assembled structures and dynamical behaviors," Winfree says. "DNA is capable of and can be rationally designed to perform a wide variety of tasks. We want to know if DNA is a sufficient building block for constructing arbitrarily complex and sophisticated molecular machines."

Winfree became an assistant professor at Caltech in 2000, an associate professor in 2006, and was named full professor in 2010. He was also named a MacArthur Fellow in 2000.

Winkler works on developing new methods for using laser spectroscopy to study chemical kinetics and the intermediate molecules that form during chemical reactions. In particular, his work involves experimental investigations of the factors that affect the rates of long-range electron-tunneling processes—the processes by which electrons are transported between atoms and molecules.

"Electron transfer reactions are fundamental processes in many chemical transformations, including electrochemical catalysis, solar energy conversion, and biological energy transduction," Winkler says. "In the Beckman Institute Laser Center, we have spent the past 25 years studying electron transfer reactions in small inorganic molecules and in metalloproteins"—proteins that contain metal atoms. "Our studies are aimed at experimentally elucidating the molecular factors that regulate the speed and efficiency of electron flow.

"I have been fortunate to work on these projects with many dedicated and talented students and postdoctoral scholars at Caltech. It is extremely gratifying to have this work recognized by the AAAS," he adds.

Following postdoctoral work at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, Winkler returned to Caltech as a Member of the Beckman Institute in 1990. He was first appointed as a lecturer in chemistry in 2002, and later a faculty associate in chemistry in 2008.

In addition to Winkler and Winfree, eight other Caltech alumni were named as AAAS Fellows: Edmund W. Bertschinger (BS '79), J. Edward Russo (BS '63), Mitchell Kronenberg (PhD '83), Donald P. Gaver III (BS '82), James W. Demmel II (BS '75), Jacqueline E. Dixon (PhD '92), Brian K. Lamb (PhD '78), and Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert (MS '98, PhD '00).

The AAAS is the world's largest general scientific society. This year, the AAAS awarded the distinction of Fellow to 347 of its members. New Fellows will be honored during the 2016 AAAS Annual Meeting in February.

Kaushik Bhattacharya, Caltech's Howell N. Tyson, Sr., Professor of Mechanics and professor of materials science, has received the Warner T. Koiter Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and Michael Ortiz, Frank and Ora Lee Marble Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, has received the society's Timoshenko Medal.

Established in 1996, the Warner T. Koiter Medal recognizes distinguished contributions to the field of solid mechanics. The award honors the late Warner T. Koiter, professor of applied mechanics at Delft University of Technology, for his fundamental work in nonlinear stability of structures, diligence in the effective application of these theories, international leadership in mechanics, and effectiveness as a teacher and researcher. This year, Bhattacharya, who is also the executive officer for mechanical and civil engineering in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, received the medal "for the development of novel, rigorous, and predictive methods for the multi-scale behavior of modern engineering materials at scales ranging from the sub-atomic to the polycrystal, with special focus on multi-functional materials." Bhattacharya's research group studies the mechanical behavior of solids and uses theory to guide the development of new materials.

"Our challenge is not to shape the material to get the function we want, but how we create a specific material that already possesses the function we want. We are in fact merging both material and machine—and that is absolutely exciting!" says Bhattacharya.

The Timoshenko Medal, established in 1957, is given to recognize contributions to the field of applied mechanics. This award commemorates the late Stephen P. Timoshenko's contributions to applied mechanics as an author and a teacher. Timoshenko is often revered as the "father of mechanical applied mechanics" and worked at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute, Ways of Communication Institute, University of Michigan, and Stanford University. Ortiz was honored "for his seminal, groundbreaking and remarkably creative contributions" that resulted in the creation of new methods and models for the field of solid mechanics.

Ortiz views his research as a "bridge between fundamental science and industry," focusing on real-world applications. His research group is interested in "understanding and modeling the behavior of materials and structures across length and time scales" and in "understanding the limits of usability of materials," according to his website.

"The recognition of one's peers is the sweetest thing of all in our line of business, and it is one of the main things that keep us going in our careers. To say that I am deeply moved and honored by this award is an understatement, I am actually tickled pink," says Ortiz.

Bhattacharya and Ortiz received the medals during the 2015 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition, held in Houston, Texas, in November.

Caltech professors Harry Atwater, Mark Davis, and Ali Hajimiri have been named as fellows of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). According to the NAI press release, fellows are "academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society."

Harry Atwater is the Howard Hughes Professor of Applied Physics and Materials Science as well as the director of the Department of Energy Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis (JCAP). His research focuses on photovoltaics and solar energy—he helped develop an artificial leaf as part of his work with JCAP—as well as plasmonics (oscillations of electrons on the surface of materials) and optical metamaterials (materials comprised of nanostructures). Atwater joined the Caltech faculty in 1988 and is a fellow of the Materials Research Society and member of U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

Mark Davis is the Warren and Katharine Schlinger Professor of Chemical Engineering and a member of the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center and the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. Davis's research aims to synthesize catalytic materials called zeolites—crystalline solids made of silicon, aluminum, and oxygen and containing "micropores"—and biocompatible materials for the delivery of macromolecular therapeutics. Davis arrived at Caltech in 1991 and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering. In 2014, he received the Prince of Asturias Award for Technical and Scientific Research. Davis is the holder of more than 50 U.S. patents.

Ali Hajimiri is the Thomas G. Myers Professor of Electrical Engineering, the executive officer for Electrical Engineering, and director of Information Science and Technology. Hajimiri's research covers broad areas within high-speed and high-frequency electronics- and photonics-integrated circuits. This year, the Hajimiri group synthesized a 3-D camera—called a nanophotonic coherent imager—that provides the highest depth-measurement accuracy (similar to resolution) of any such nanophotonic 3-D imaging device. He joined the Caltech faculty in 1998 and holds 78 issued U.S. patents. Hajimiri is also a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

The 2015 fellows account for more than 5,300 issued U.S. patents. This year's fellows will be inducted on April 15, 2016, as part of the Fifth Annual Conference of the National Academy of Inventors at the United States Patent and Trademark Office in Virginia.

Postdoctoral scholar Reid Van Lehn has been named to Forbes's annual 30 Under 30 list in the science category. The list honors 30 outstanding individuals under 30 years old in 20 different categories, from venture capital to sports to science. Van Lehn was recognized for his research on chemically engineered nanoparticles and their interactions with cell membranes.

"I'm honored to be included amongst this impressive list of scientists—both those named this year and in prior years," Van Lehn says. "I know many dedicated researchers both at Caltech and elsewhere who are deserving of such accolades, and I feel very fortunate to have been recognized for my contributions. I would especially like to thank my colleagues and advisors, who have had a profound effect on my education and research and have been immensely supportive throughout my career."

Van Lehn uses molecular simulation to study what happens when synthetic molecules—engineered nanoparticles injected into the body—and biological molecules interact with cell membranes. During his graduate work at MIT, he discovered a mechanism by which certain kinds of nanoparticles insert themselves into cell membranes, a finding that could have implications in novel drug delivery pathways. As a postdoc in Professor of Chemistry Tom Miller's group at Caltech, Van Lehn uses simulations to study how membrane proteins integrate into cell membranes via a protein-conducting channel called the Sec translocon.

This fall, Van Lehn will join the faculty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, in its Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. His research will focus on developing and utilizing new simulation methods to understand the interactions of bioactive materials and engineer novel nanoparticles for therapeutic applications.

When not in the lab, Van Lehn can be found avidly playing or watching sports. "I hail from Pittsburgh, so I primarily follow the Pittsburgh Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates," he says. "I also play pickup Ultimate Frisbee, and I can occasionally be seen being horribly outplayed in pickup basketball."

Assistant Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics Philip Hopkins has received the Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy from the American Astronomical Society (AAS) for his research in galaxy formation and evolution, and the growth of massive black holes. The award is given annually for significant contributions to observational or theoretical astronomy during the five years preceding the award.

"It is an incredible honor to be awarded the Warner prize," Hopkins says. "The previous winners are a prestigious company, including many of my own idols and mentors in astrophysics, and it is amazing to be listed among these giants in our field."

Hopkins studies the formation of astronomical objects like galaxies, stars, and supermassive black holes. Leading the Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE) project, he and his group aim to synthesize theoretical models and observations, and bring together experts on these different phenomena to understand how they interact.

"After stars form, they aren't just 'done,'" Hopkins says. "They do important things like exploding as supernovae—and the energy released in these explosions can throw around interstellar matter and actually launch winds out of galaxies that carry away most of the matter which would otherwise have formed more stars."

Hopkins and his group have shown that these so-called feedback loops between stars, black holes, and galaxies are crucial to understanding the masses and structures of galaxies. The AAS award citation describes Hopkins as a "world expert in stellar feedback" and his work as giving "great insight into the role of galaxy mergers on galaxy properties as well as quasar activation."

"At a profound level, we have realized that seemingly diverse populations in our universe—quasars, starbursts, ultraluminous galaxies, 'red and dead' galaxies, galaxy mergers, star clusters, planets, and more—are all tightly connected to one another in a constantly interacting ecosystem," he says.

Previous recipients of the award include Professor of Theoretical Astrophysics and Executive Officer for Astronomy Sterl Phinney (BS '80), and Shri Kulkarni, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Science.