Ares Rosakis, Caltech's Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, has been inducted into the Academy of Athens as a Corresponding Member. The academy was founded in 1926 and is the highest research establishment in Greece, supporting the sciences, humanities, and fine arts.

"My election as a Corresponding Member to the Academy of Athens, in addition to the great scientific honor that it represents, also has a very special meaning for me as a Greek," says Rosakis—shown at right addressing the academy at his induction ceremony. "This is after all the leading scientific and cultural institution of my country of birth, and their recognition carries, for me, exceptional sentimental value."

Rosakis's research is interdisciplinary, covering the fields of aerospace, solid mechanics, mechanics of materials failure, and mechanics of earthquake seismology. He is a leading expert in the area of dynamic failure of solid materials. His address to the academy was titled "Representing Large Earthquakes in the Mechanics Laboratory: Identifying Characteristic Ground Shaking Signatures due to Supershear Ruptures."

Rosakis, a native of Greece, received bachelor's and master's degrees from Oxford University, and his PhD from Brown University. He joined the Caltech faculty in 1982 as the Institute's youngest tenure-track faculty member. He served as chair of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science from 2009 to 2015, and as director of the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories from 2004 to 2009.

The Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge Award (SISCA) at Caltech honors students and scientists who have made significant contributions to finding sustainable solutions to the world's most pressing social, economic, and environmental problems. The award was established in 2009 by the Dow Chemical Company with the goal of promoting "forward thinking in social and environmental responsibility," according to the SISCA website. This year, graduate students Trevor Del Castillo and Niklas Thompson shared the $10,000 grand prize for their research developing a sustainable catalyst for nitrogen fixation.

Nitrogen is an abundant element crucial to many fertilizers and other chemicals produced on a large scale, but it must first be "fixed" from its inert gaseous state (N₂) into usable reactive forms such as ammonia (NH₃). The current leading process for synthesizing ammonia, the Haber-Bosch process, is expensive and energy-intense, requiring extreme temperatures and pressures (about 700 degrees Fahrenheit and 200 bars of pressure).

"From a human health perspective, fertilizer production is arguably the most important industrial chemical process that we practice," says Del Castillo. "We currently conduct this chemistry on a tremendous scale in order to feed approximately half of the global population. However, the current technology for fertilizer production is underpinned by high inputs and is hence typically practiced where fossil fuel sources are readily available and inexpensive. In addition to these energy constraints, current modes of agricultural fertilizer use are environmentally harmful and can be impractical in the developing world, where the demand for fertilizer will continue to increase moving forward."

New catalyst technologies have the potential to address this challenge. Del Castillo and Thompson—both graduate students in the laboratory of Jonas Peters, the Bren Professor of Chemistry and director of the Resnick Sustainability Institute—have studied a recently discovered catalyst system to drive nitrogen fixation, resulting in improved performance and furnishing mechanistic insights. Inspired by a family of enzymes that performs biological nitrogen fixation at room temperatures and pressures, the Peters lab has demonstrated that a simple iron compound can catalyze the fixation of nitrogen gas into ammonia at very low temperature and atmospheric pressure.

"This is a field where new technology and innovation has the potential to impact global social equity and sustainable food security while reducing environmental impact," Thompson says. "Our team's work is a small step in this context, but we ultimately hope our fundamental science discoveries will inspire more practical, sustainable technologies. In principle, nitrogen fixing catalysts can be coupled to artificial photosynthesis technologies, potentially opening the door to modular, accessible, and carbon-neutral fertilizer production."

The runners-up for the SISCA prize are Cody Finke, a graduate student, and Justin Jasper, a Resnick Sustainability Institute Prize Postdoctoral Scholar. Both work in the research group of Michael Hoffmann, the James Irvine Professor of Environmental Science, and together they have improved upon a design for a solar-powered wastewater treatment system created for toilets in the developing and developed world. Their process combines ultraviolet (UV) irradiation and electrochemical treatment to produce water suitable for reuse in agriculture and ecosystem services.

"We proposed a hybrid electrochemical-UV system that could be used to provide efficient wastewater treatment in places where water and sewer infrastructure are not available, such as parts of the developing world," Jasper says. "We were particularly excited about our research since it suggested that adding a UV step to the process significantly accelerated treatment and limited formation of disinfection byproducts that can be detrimental to human health.  Therefore, with further work, our system may be able to provide not only wastewater treatment, but also a water source for applications such as irrigation or household cleaning."

Dianne Newman, professor of biology and geobiology at Caltech and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, has been awarded the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Award in Molecular Biology for her "discovery of microbial mechanisms underlying geologic processes." The award citation recognizes her for "launching the field of molecular geomicrobiology" and fostering greater awareness of the important roles microorganisms have played and continue to play in how Earth evolved.

"Trust me, no one was more shocked than I was by this news," says Newman. "It really honors the many the exceptional people who have come through my lab over the years, as well as the geobiology field more broadly. Geobiology is a venerable old field, which offers many fascinating and important problems that would benefit from the attention of individuals trained in mechanistic research. Hopefully this award will encourage more young people from molecular and cellular biology to enter the field."

Newman's research focuses on the relationship between microorganisms and geologic processes. She has demonstrated that some bacteria in iron-rich environments, such soils and sediments, can utilize extracellular iron as a dump site for excess electrons by generating extracellular electron shuttles, including a class of metabolites formerly considered to be redox-active antibiotics. Newman has also made contributions to our understanding of other microbial metabolic processes of geological significance, including how microbes respire using arsenate instead of oxygen, and how they perform photosynthesis using iron rather than water. In addition, she and her coworkers have studied the mechanisms by which certain microbes make stromatolites and magnetosomes, two types of structures that leave biosignatures in ancient rocks. Perhaps most importantly, her team has demonstrated the power of applying genetic analysis to diverse organisms from iron-rich environments, paving the way for others to do the same.

Newman is now hoping to bring tools commonly used in geochemistry to facilitate environmentally-informed studies of pathogens in chronic infections. For example, in collaboration with Caltech professor of geobiology Alex Sessions and researchers at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, Newman's group has characterized the composition and growth rate of pathogens in mucus collecting in the lungs of individuals with cystic fibrosis. Using this information, her lab is designing new experiments to reveal the survival mechanisms utilized by microorganisms—such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an opportunistic bacterium that colonizes the lungs of these patients—in this environment.

The NAS Award in Molecular Biology was first given in 1962. It is presented with a medal and a $25,000 prize. Newman will receive the award on May 1, 2016, during the National Academy of Sciences' annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

Previous recipients of the award include David Baltimore, Caltech President Emeritus and the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biology.

Jamie Bock, professor of physics and Jet Propulsion Laboratory senior research scientist, has received the Joseph Weber Award for Astronomical Instrumentation from the American Astronomical Society (AAS). The award citation notes his "development of low-noise 'spider-web' bolometers"—devices for measuring radiation—that have enabled fundamental measurements of the cosmic microwave background. The award is given annually for the design, invention, or significant improvement of instrumentation leading to advances in astronomy.

The spider-web bolometers, developed to detect millimeter-wave and far-infrared radiation, enabled a generation of ground-based and balloon-borne experiments for mapping variations in the cosmic microwave background, or CMB, which is thermal radiation from the early universe. The most notable of the telescopes employing these bolometers,, the BOOMERanG balloon experiment, made measurements of the CMB that ultimately determined that the overall geometry of the universe is very nearly flat. Detector arrays later flew on the Planck spacecraft and provided what is currently the ultimate measurement of the CMB over the full sky, and flew as well on the Herschel Space Observatory, a 3.5-meter space-based telescope for far-infrared astronomy. Modern descendants of the spider-web bolometers are actively engaged in measuring CMB polarization from Earth's South Pole.

After receiving his PhD in physics from UC Berkeley in 1994, Bock joined JPL as a research scientist and Caltech as a visiting associate. He was named a senior research scientist and full professor in 2012.

Two members of the Caltech community—professor Paul Dimotakis (BS '68, physics; MS '69, aeronautics; PhD '73, applied physics) and JPL scientist Adam Steltzner (MS '91, applied mechanics)—have been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), an honor considered among the highest professional distinctions awarded to an engineer. The academy welcomed 80 new members and 22 foreign members this year. In addition to Dimotakis and Steltzner, the new class of members includes five alumni, Emily A. Carter (PhD '87, chemistry), Arati Prabhakar (MS '80, electrical engineering; PhD '85, applied physics), Gabriel M. Rebeiz (MS '83, PhD '88, electrical engineering), Yongkui Sun (PhD '90, chemistry), and Stephen M. Trimberger (BS '77, engineering and applied science; PhD '83, computer science).

Paul Dimotakis is the John K. Northrop Professor of Aeronautics and professor of applied physics in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, and a senior research scientist at JPL. He was recognized by the NAE for his contributions to the fluid mechanics of jet propulsion and other processes involving turbulence, mixing, and transport. He has most recently been conducting experimental, theoretical, and numerical investigations in supersonic-propulsion flows. Dimotakis served as JPL's chief technologist from 2006 to 2011 and has continued collaborating with JPL to estimate the vertical distribution of CO₂ throughout the atmosphere using spaceborne instruments. He recently co-led a study between the Caltech campus, JPL, and others, with support by the Keck Institute for Space Studies, on the possibility of bringing a small asteroid into orbit around Earth or the moon.

Adam Steltzner is the chief engineer for the Mars 2020 project and the manager of the Planetary Entry, Descent, and Landing and Small Body Access Office at JPL. Steltzner was recognized for his work in the development of the Mars Curiosity rover's entry, descent, and landing system, and for contributions to the control of parachute dynamics. In addition to working on Curiosity, he has also contributed to the Galileo, Cassini, Mars Pathfinder, and Mars Exploration Rover missions.

The new members will be formally inducted at a ceremony during the NAE's Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., on October 9, 2016.

Viviana Gradinaru (BS '05), an assistant professor of biology and biological engineering, and James Benardini, a planetary protection engineer at JPL, have been named as recipients of the 2016 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

The PECASE awards were created to foster innovative developments in science and technology, increase awareness of careers in science and engineering, give recognition to the scientific missions of participating agencies, enhance connections between fundamental research and many of the grand challenges facing the nation, and highlight the importance of science and technology for America's future. The award is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

Viviana Gradinaru is an assistant professor of biology and biological engineering as well as the faculty director of the Beckman Institute Center for CLARITY, Optogenetics, and Vector Engineering Research (CLOVER). Her work focuses on developing technologies such as optogenetics (using light to control genetically modified cells) and tissue clearing (that can render rodent tissues and bodies transparent via PARS CLARITY). Most recently, she and her team have discovered how to modify the protein shell of a harmless virus to successfully enter the adult mouse brain from the bloodstream—crossing the so-called blood-brain barrier—and deliver genes to cells of the nervous system. Gradinaru employs these technologies for mapping and modulating brain networks to understand and develop therapies for neurological diseases.

James (Nick) Benardini is the planetary protection lead on the InSight and Mars 2020 missions. He and his colleagues study how to minimize microbial and other biological contamination on outgoing space missions. This involves the use of clean rooms and microbial reduction modalities in addition to looking for genetic traces on samples collected from spacecraft and spacecraft-associated surfaces.

In addition to Gradinaru, three other Caltech alumni were named as 2016 PECASE recipients: Alon Gorodetsky (PhD '09), Jon Simon (BS '04), and Tammy Ma (BS '05).

The winners will receive their awards at a ceremony in Washington, D.C., this spring.

Caltech's Venkat Chandrasekaran, assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences and electrical engineering in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, has been named a 2016 Sloan Research Fellow. The fellowships, awarded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, honor "early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars, the next generation of scientific leaders." According to the foundation, "Candidates must be nominated by their peers, and winning fellows are selected by an independent panel of senior scholars on the basis of a candidate's independent research accomplishments, creativity, and potential to become a leader in his or her field." This year, 126 fellows were chosen.

Chandrasekaran, who joined the Caltech faculty in 2012, was selected for his work in the field of mathematical optimization. "Broadly, optimization is about choosing the best element from a set of feasible alternatives. For instance, if you work in jet-engine design, you have certain constraints in the amount of material you can use, the weight of these materials, aerodynamic issues, etc. But then you want to be able to design your wings and so on in such a way that you maximize, for example, how fast you are able to go," he says. "I'm interested in optimization problems arising in data analysis. We are able to gather massive amounts of data, but how can we optimally separate useful information from noise?"

Sloan Fellows receive a $55,000 award to further their research in any way they see fit, allowing researchers to work on projects that they might not be able to pursue with more restrictive funding sources. "I think one advantage of fellowships like this is that they are, in some sense, no strings attached. You have the flexibility to use it to pursue high-risk ideas," says Chandrasekaran, who is planning to use the funding to work on the optimization of algorithm selection.

"If a practitioner wants to solve a specific problem in their field, they often need to understand the details of an algorithm," he explains. "If you want to drive from point A to B in a car, you only need to know how to operate a car, not the mechanics of how the car works. We're not yet in the same place with algorithms," he explains. "Right now if a practitioner asks for a recommendation for an algorithm with reliable and predictable performance, computer scientists are often only able to respond with, 'Try all of them and see what works for you.' I'd like to use mathematical optimization to provide algorithmic tools that are like cars; you should not need to know the inner workings of these algorithms to be able to employ them reliably, easily, and efficiently."

Presented annually since 1955 by the Sloan Foundation, the fellowships are awarded in chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, evolutionary and computational molecular biology, neuroscience, and physics. In addition to Chandrasekaran, this year's class of Sloan Fellows also includes seven Caltech alumni: William Chueh (BS '05, MS '06, PhD '11), Jillian Dempsey (PhD '11), Hernan Garcia (PhD '11), Elaine Hsiao (PhD '13), Alex Miller (PhD '11), Surjeet Rajendran (BS '04), and Ke Xu (PhD '09).

Charles Elachi, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and professor of electrical engineering and planetary science at Caltech, will be honored with a pair of prestigious awards over the next two months: the 2016 Aviation Week Laureate Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the National Space Trophy from the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement Foundation.

Read the full story from JPL News

The regional district of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) has recognized publications and posters made by Caltech with six Awards of Excellence—two gold, two silver, and two bronze medals.

CASE is a professional association that serves educational institutions and the people who work on their behalf in areas such as alumni relations, communications, development, and marketing.

Every year, CASE District VII, which represents the western region of the United States, including Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Nevada, Northern Mariana Islands, and Utah, hosts its Awards of Excellence program to highlight and recognize the field's best practices.

This year, a panel of 75 peer judges reviewed more than 500 entries and ultimately recognized 195 bronze, silver, and gold medal winners.

The judges awarded two gold medals to magazines put out by Caltech. In the category of annual magazines, the latest issue of ENGenious, a magazine created and published by the Communications Office of the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, earned a gold. And Engineering & Science, a quarterly magazine produced by Caltech's Office of Strategic Communications, also won first prize among general-interest magazines in its circulation class.

In the design category, a series of posters created by the Caltech Alumni Association for the 2015 Reunion Weekend and Seminar Day earned a silver medal.

Two videos developed to share research findings were honored in the news and research videos category. "Next Generation of Neuroprosthetics: Science Explained," created by Caltech's Academic Media Technologies, earned a silver medal, while "The Science of Healthy Eating," made by the Office of Strategic Communications, won bronze.

And finally, the Institute's 2014 annual report, titled It Starts Here, won a bronze medal in the Publications: Institutional Relations category.

A full list of the 2016 winners can be found here.

Caltech has announced that Eric Betzig (BS '83), Janet C. Campagna (MS '85), Neil A. Gehrels (PhD '82), Carl V. Larson (BS '52), Thomas J. "Tim" Litle IV (BS '62), and Ellen D. Williams (PhD '82) are this year's recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Award.

First presented in 1966, the award is the highest honor the Institute bestows upon its graduates. It is awarded in recognition of a particular achievement of noteworthy value, a series of such achievements, or a career of noteworthy accomplishment. Presentation of the awards will be given on Saturday, May 21, 2016, as part of Caltech's Seminar Day.

The 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients are

Eric Betzig (BS '83, Physics)

Physicist; Group Leader, Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Betzig is being recognized for his groundbreaking contributions to microscopy. He pioneered a method known as single-molecule microscopy, or "nanoscopy," which allows cellular structures at the nanoscale to be observed using optical microscopy. For the work, he shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014.

Janet C. Campagna (MS '85, Social Science)

CEO, QS Investors

Campagna is being recognized for her contributions to quantitative investment and for her leadership in the financial industry. Campagna is the founder of QS Investors, LLC, a leading customized solutions and global quantitative equities provider. She is responsible for all business, strategic, and investment decisions within QS Investors. 

Neil A. Gehrels (PhD '82, Physics)

Chief of the Astroparticle Physics Laboratory, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Gehrels is being recognized for his scientific leadership in the study of gamma ray bursts as well as for his significant contributions to high-energy astrophysics, infrared astronomy, and instrument development.

Carl V. Larson (BS '52, Mechanical Engineering)

Larson is being recognized for his accomplished career in the electronics industry. Over the course of three decades, Larson has held numerous and diverse leadership roles in fields ranging from engineering to marketing. He is also being celebrated for his sustained commitment to the research, students, and alumni of Caltech.

Thomas J. "Tim" Litle IV  (BS '62, Engineering and Applied Science)

Founder and Chairman, Litle & Co.

Litle is being recognized for his revolutionary contributions to commerce. Through innovations such as the presorted mail program he developed for the U.S. Postal Service and the three-digit security codes on credit cards, Litle has made global business more efficient and secure.

Ellen D. Williams (PhD '82, Chemistry)

Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)

Williams is being recognized for her sustained record of innovation and achievement in the area of structural surface physics. She founded the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at the University of Maryland and was the chief scientist for BP. She now serves as director of the Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA-E) in the U.S. Department of Energy.

The 2016 Richard P. Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching has been awarded to Ellen Rothenberg, the Albert Billings Ruddock Professor of Biology.

Established in 1993, the Feynman Prize annually honors "a professor who demonstrates, in the broadest sense, unusual ability, creativity, and innovation in undergraduate and graduate classroom or laboratory teaching." Rothenberg, who has been at Caltech since joining the faculty as an assistant professor in 1982, was nominated for the prize by her students, who cited qualities such as her passion for teaching and her engagement with students as the reason for their nominations.

Rothenberg investigates the regulatory mechanisms that control blood stem cell differentiation and the development of T lymphocytes—white blood cells that play an important role in immunity. Not surprisingly, when she began at Caltech, her first teaching assignment was Immunology (Bi 114), a course that she continued to teach for 25 years, consistently receiving high ratings from her students in her teaching-quality feedback reports. In 1989, Rothenberg also introduced Caltech's first course on the molecular biology of blood development, Hematopoiesis: A Developmental System (Bi 214)—a course that she still teaches every other year.

Rothenberg recently was instrumental to changes made to the introductory biology courses at Caltech. "I was the chair of the Curriculum Committee, and I noticed that there were issues that arose for both students and faculty with the first two introductory courses," she says. Beginning in 2008, she began redeveloping and teaching these introductory courses, Cell Biology (Bi 9) and then molecular biology (Bi 8). A student's first two terms at Caltech are mandatory pass/fail, "and we discovered that the students are actually really excited to do something hard when it's on a pass/fail basis," she explains.

In a letter of nomination, one of Rothenberg's students said that she appreciated the challenge to learn more complicated material in an introductory course. "In her course, Professor Rothenberg emphasizes important concepts about molecular biology; however, she also takes time to explore higher-level concepts with incredible enthusiasm," the student said. "This introduced me to the many complex systems I could learn about while showing me how exciting biological research is. I also sit on the Curriculum Committee, which she leads, and I have seen how she constantly returns to the idea of what will help students learn best and what will train them effectively."

Another student who nominated Rothenberg wrote that "… she showed students that, contrary to what they might have heard, biology was not simply a 'memorization game,' but rather a logic puzzle. By slowly introducing us to different research techniques, she allowed us to see how we could pose and answer questions in biology ourselves."

In addition to challenging her students to learn in a new way, Rothenberg says that these introductory courses also challenged her to teach differently. Because introductory courses have larger class sizes, she says it was inherently more difficult to get to know her students. So, she found ways to connect with her students outside of class time. "She spends a lot of time with her students," one student said in a nomination, "even actively participating in recitation sections with her TAs, an unusual task for professors. She strives to improve her class every year."

Previously, Rothenberg was awarded the Biology Undergraduate Students Advisory Council Award for excellence in teaching four times, the Ferguson Prize for Undergraduate Teaching twice, and the ASCIT Award for Undergraduate Teaching twice. In addition, she has chaired the divisional Curriculum Committee for the past several years, working to rationalize the biology curriculum and to put the best teachers in place for each course. As part of her work on the Curriculum Committee, she interacts closely with the Biology Undergraduate Students Advisory Council.

"Winning this award and being recognized at an institutional level…it means a lot to me. And I'm also really humbled that I'm the first biologist ever to get the Feynman Prize," she says. "I love teaching. The greatest gift you can give someone is to share your understanding with them and to help them develop their own understanding. That incredible connection between the way you appreciate the complexity of the world and the way you can give students the tools to see things that you never saw before—it's really beautiful. And the fact that this institute has a way of valuing that is really wonderful," she adds.

The Feynman Prize has been endowed through the generosity of Caltech Associates Ione and Robert E. Paradise and an anonymous local couple. Some of the most recent winners of the Feynman Prize include Kevin Gilmartin, professor of English; Steven Frautschi, professor of theoretical physics, emeritus; and Paul Asimow, professor of geology and geochemistry.

Nominations for next year's Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching will be solicited in the fall. Further information about the prize can be found on the Provost's Office website.

Venkat Chandrasekaran and Thomas Vidick have received grants from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research through its Young Investigator Research Program (YIP). The award, given to scientists and engineers who have received their PhD in the last five years, is intended to foster creative research in science and engineering areas of interest to the Air Force.

Chandrasekaran is an assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences and electrical engineering in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science. His grant will be used for a YIP project titled "Latent Variable Graphical Modeling for High-Dimensional Data Analysis."

"The analysis of massive datasets arises in a range of contemporary problem domains throughout science and technology," Chandrasekaran says. "A central objective in data analysis is to learn simple or 'concise' models that characterize the statistical correlations among large collections of variables. Concisely specified models provide useful interpretations of the relationships underlying a set of variables. However, unobserved phenomena complicate this task significantly because these extraneous variables induce relationships among the observed variables that are complex to describe. The objective of this research project supported by the Air Force is to develop principled and computationally tractable methods for statistical modeling that account for the effects of unobserved phenomena."

Vidick is an assistant professor of computing and mathematical sciences in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science. His YIP project is titled "Towards a secure quantum network."

"Developing computing devices based on the laws of quantum mechanics will dramatically upend existing communication networks in two major ways," Vidick says. "First, by providing new classes of attacks on existing cryptosystems. Second, by turning formerly impossible cryptographic tasks into game-changing possibilities. My research aims to address the following challenge: What are the protocols and notions of security that will allow efficient and secure interactions in the emerging network of classical and quantum devices?"

"I think it's fantastic that the Air Force Office of Scientific Research is recognizing the urgency of theoretical research in quantum communications and cryptography," he says. "I am honored my research has been selected for the award."

On March 15, Caltech Athletics announced the newest class of inductees into the Caltech Athletics Hall of Honor. The Hall of Honor, established in 2014, celebrates significant athletic achievements by members of the Caltech community, commemorates Caltech's athletic tradition and commitment to competitive excellence, and recognizes the important role that athletic participation plays in students' overall development.

This year's inductees are baseball player Jim Hamrick, Jr. (BS '86), the mostly highly decorated player in Caltech baseball history; Cailin (Henderson) Sibley (BS '97), who participated in the NCAA Championships in both cross country and track and field; swimmer and diver Chris McKinnon (BS '83), who qualified for the NCAA Championships in each of his four years; cross-country and track and field athlete Folke Karl Skoog (BS '32, PhD '36), who was both an Olympian (participating in the 1932 Summer Olympics) and a scientist whose pioneering work in plant physiology earned him the 1991 National Medal of Science; two-time All-American Gregg Wright (BS '69), a swimmer, diver, and water-polo player; the 1953–54 men's basketball team, winner of the only outright conference title in program history; and Bert LaBrucherie, who coached the football, track and field, and cross-country teams over the course of his 25-year career.

The honorees will be inducted formally on Sunday, May 22, 2016, at the conclusion of Alumni Reunion Weekend. 

For more information on all of the inductees, read the full announcement on the Caltech Athletics site.

Ares Rosakis, the Theodore von Kármán Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, will receive the Theodore von Kármán Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers. The medal was established and endowed in 1960 by the Engineering Mechanics Division of the society—now the Engineering Mechanics Institute (EMI)—in order to recognize distinguished achievement in engineering mechanics. The Von Kármán medal is the flagship medal of the EMI.

Rosakis is being honored for "discovering several fundamental physical phenomena in dynamic fracture of heterogeneous materials and interfaces at various length and time scales," according to the award citation. Particularly noted was his proposal of the concept of "laboratory earthquakes" and the associated unique experimental facility, which was established at the Graduate Aerospace Laboratories of the California Institute of Technology (GALCIT) more than a decade ago. Through experiments that reproduce the basic physics of earthquake rupture, he and his collaborators, including Caltech seismologist Hiroo Kanamori, were able to experimentally show that earthquake ruptures may propagate with "super-shear speeds"—speeds in excess of the bulk shear wave speeds of the surrounding material. They also conclusively proved that certain historic, large earthquakes did transition to super-shear and explained the unusual ground-shaking signatures that are characteristic of such catastrophic events.

"I feel extremely honored and humbled to receive the Theodore von Kármán Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers," says Rosakis. "I am especially thrilled to receive an award bearing the name of von Kármán, whose remarkable achievements epitomize Caltech's natural interdisciplinary approach to science and engineering."

Rosakis has also served as the fifth director of GALCIT, which was established and directed by Theodore von Kármán in the early 1920s.

Oscar Bruno and Julia Greer have been named National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellows by the Department of Defense (DoD). Fifteen university faculty scientists and engineers comprise the 2016 class of fellows.

"The program awards grants to top-tier researchers from U.S. universities to conduct long-term, unclassified, basic research of strategic importance to the Defense Department," said Melissa L. Flagg, deputy assistant secretary of defense for research at the DoD, in an announcement of the new fellows. "These grants engage outstanding scientists and engineers in the most challenging technical issues facing the department."

Oscar Bruno is a professor of applied and computational mathematics in Caltech's Division of Engineering and Applied Science (EAS). Bruno's work aims to develop high-performance computer software for evaluation of engineering structures and simulation of physical phenomena—including optical devices, communications and remote-sensing/stealth systems, materials-science microstructures and seismic, aerodynamic, and hydrodynamic phenomena. In 1989, Bruno received his PhD, graduating with a Friedrichs Prize for an outstanding dissertation in mathematics from New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He became an associate professor at Caltech in 1995 and a professor of applied and computational mathematics in 1998. Dr. Bruno is a former member of editorial boards of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London and the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, and he currently serves in the board of the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing. He has served as executive officer of Caltech's Applied and Computational Mathematics department, and he is the recipient of a Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation and a Sloan Foundation Fellowship. He is member of the council of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics. In 2013, he was named as a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

Julia R. Greer is a professor of materials science, mechanics, and medical engineering in EAS. Her research focuses on creating and studying advanced materials that combine hierarchical architectures and unique nanoscale material properties. Greer received her PhD in materials science from Stanford and did post-doctoral work at the Palo Alto Research Center before joining the Caltech faculty in 2007. Her work was recently featured on CNN's 2020 Visionaries and was recognized among the Top 10 Breakthrough Technologies by the MIT Technology Review in 2015. Greer has received a number of recognitions and awards, including Gilbreth Lectureship by the National Academy of Engineering (2015), Young Global Leader by World Economic Forum (2014), Kavli Early Career Award (2014), Nano Letters Young Investigator Lectureship (2013), Society of Engineering Science Young Investigator (2013), NASA Early Career Faculty (2012), Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award (2012), DOE Early Career (2011), DARPA's Young Faculty (2009), Technology Review's TR-35, (2008). Greer serves as an Associated Editor of the journals Nano Letters and Extreme Mechanics Letters.

Soumya Kannan, a senior bioengineering major, has been selected to receive a Fulbright Fellowship to pursue research and graduate study in Denmark.

The Fulbright Program is the U.S. government's premier scholarship program. Set up by Congress in 1946 to foster mutual understanding among nations through educational and cultural exchanges, Fulbright grants enable U.S. students and artists to benefit from unique resources in every corner of the world. Each year, approximately 1,200 Americans study or conduct research in more than 150 nations through the Fulbright Program.

Kannan will be working at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in the Department of Systems Biology, developing a mathematical model for promoter activity—promoters are a class of genetic elements that initiate transcription of a gene—in Saccaromyces cerevisiae, a species of yeast. Additionally, she will be pursuing master's coursework in bioinformatics and systems biology.

"Recent developments in the fields of systems biology and synthetic biology have greatly expanded our ability to use engineering principles to model, design, program, and control behavior of organisms at a cellular level," says Kannan. "Promoters are critical to this design process, as they drive the level at which a gene is expressed and its expression pattern over time, and thus offer control over intracellular pathways. The ability to have fine-tuned control over genetic elements leads to more effective implementation of circuits and pathways in biological systems."

Kannan has worked in the lab of Mitchell Guttman, assistant professor of biology, since her sophomore year, studying long non-coding RNA, or lncRNA, a class of regulatory molecules, first characterized by Guttman, that are involved in genome regulation and cellular organization.

Kannan, a native of Northern California, has had prior international academic experience—in the winter term of the 2014-15 academic year, she participated in Caltech's Cambridge Scholars study abroad program at the University of Cambridge. During her time at Caltech, she was a four-year member of the women's water polo team, earning the Most Valuable Player award in 2014 and 2015, as well as Academic All-SCIAC (Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference) honors for those two years. Kannan has also participated as an editor and photographer for the Caltech yearbook.

"Soumya Kannan exemplifies how Caltech students can excel in academics, while also having range of activities in leadership and sports," says Lauren Stolper, the director of Fellowships Advising, Study Abroad, and the Career Development Center. "She will be an exemplar for Caltech and the U.S. during her stay in Denmark."

After her Fulbright year, Kannan will be pursuing her PhD in biological engineering at MIT.

"I am grateful for the opportunity provided by the Fulbright Fellowship to live abroad and immerse myself in a culturally new environment," Kannan says. "DTU also has a fantastic Department of Systems Biology, and I am excited to explore the research and academic opportunities at the university."

This year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has selected 20 current Caltech students and 13 alumni to receive its Graduate Research Fellowships. The awards support three years of graduate study within a five-year fellowship period in research-based master's or doctoral programs in science or engineering.

The NSF notes that the Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) "is a critical program in NSF's overall strategy to develop the globally-engaged workforce necessary to ensure the nation's leadership in advancing science and engineering research and innovation." The selection criteria used to identify NSF fellows reflect the potential of the applicant to advance knowledge and benefit society.

Caltech's awardees for 2016 are seniors Kurtis Mickel Carsch, Webster Guan, Soumya Kannan, Emil Timergalievich Khabiboullin, Laura Shou, and Karthik Guruswamy Siva; and graduate students Hannah Marie Allen, Charles H. Arnett, Sarah Michelle Cohen, Heidi Klumpe, Rachel Ann Krueger, Usha Farey Lingappa, Joseph P. Messinger, Andres Ortiz-Munoz, Shyam M. Saladi, Lee Michael Saper, Nancy Helen Thomas, Annelise Christine Thompson, Elise M. Tookmanian, and Jeremy Chi-Pang Tran. The graduate student awardees join 136 current NSF fellows enrolled at Caltech, representing approximately 20 percent of the domestic graduate student population.

Caltech alumni in the 2016 class of Graduate Fellows are: Sidney Douglas Buchbinder, Kaitlin Ching, Katherine Jennie Fisher, Emmett Daniel Goodman, Edward W. Huang, Jacqueline Maslyn, Misha Raffiee, Connor Edwin Rosen, Nicole Nisha Thadani, Malvika Verma, Eugene Aaron Vinitsky, Yushu Joy Xie, and Doris Xin.

In total this year, the NSF selected 2,000 GRFP recipients from a pool of nearly 17,000 applicants. Caltech's Fellowships Advising & Study Abroad Office works with current students and recent Caltech graduates interested in applying for an NSF fellowship, sponsoring a panel discussion of previous winners each fall and offering one-on-one advising.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected two Caltech professors—Hirosi Ooguri and Rob Phillips—as fellows. The American Academy is one of the nation's oldest honorary societies; this class of members is its 236th, and it includes a total of 213 scholars and leaders representing such diverse fields as academia, business, public affairs, the humanities, and the arts.

Hirosi Ooguri is the director of the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Fred Kavli Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics in the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy. He works on quantum field theory and superstring theory, aiming to invent new theoretical tools to solve fundamental questions in physics.

Rob Phillips is the Fred and Nancy Morris Professor of Biophysics and Biology and has appointments in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science and the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering. He focuses on the physical biology of the cell using biophysical theory as well as single-molecule and single-cell experiments.

Ooguri and Phillips join 86 current Caltech faculty as members of the American Academy. Also included in this year's list are two Caltech trustees, David Lee (PhD '74) and Ron Linde (MS '62, PhD '64); as well as three additional alumni: Gerard Fuller (MS '77, PhD '80), Melanie Sanford (PhD '01), and Robert Schoelkopf (PhD '95).

Founded in 1780 by John Adams, James Bowdoin, John Hancock, and other scholar-patriots, the academy aims to serve the nation by cultivating "every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people." The academy has elected as fellows and foreign honorary members "leading thinkers and doers" from each generation, including George Washington and Ben Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Woodrow Wilson in the 20th. This year's class of fellows includes novelist Colm Tóibín, La Opinión publisher and CEO Monica Lozano, jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter, former Botswanan president Festus Mogae, and autism author and spokesperson Temple Grandin.

A full list of new members is available on the academy website at www.amacad.org/members.

The new class will be inducted at a ceremony on October 8, 2016, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Anton Toutov, graduate student in chemistry and chemical engineering and a Dow-Resnick Fellow, won first place—a $5,000 prize—at the Caltech Library's first Three-Minute Thesis competition held April 15 to a packed house in Dabney Lounge.

The contest challenged nine Caltech final-year PhD students to explain the breadth of their research in only three minutes while making it engaging and understandable to a nonspecialist audience. Each of the nine finalists' presentations was voted on by a panel of judges that included Doug Rees, dean of graduate students; George Pigman, professor of English; engineering librarian George Porter; graduate student Jamie Rankin; and special judges Pasadena mayor Terry Tornek; Joan Horvath, co-founder of Nonscriptum LLC; and Ernie Mercado, proprietor of Ernie's Al Fresco.

Toutov spoke about his work developing green chemical manufacturing methods while the second-place winner of $3,000, Utkarsh Mital, a graduate student in applied mechanics, explained his research on soil liquefaction. Mital was also the People's Choice award winner, which was voted for live via text message during the event, and for which he received $1,000 and a gift card to Ernie's.

Three-Minute Thesis is the creation of the University of Queensland in Australia as an exercise that "cultivates students' academic, presentation, and research communication skills." The Caltech event, initiated by special projects librarian Dana Roth, was sponsored by the Friends of the Caltech Libraries and academic publisher Springer Nature, which provided the prize money.

When the first email came, Alexei Kitaev ignored it. The subject heading said something about a physics award, but he thought it was just spam. "Then I received another email," says the Caltech physicist. "So I actually took a look and understood that it was real."

Real it was. Kitaev had won the first ever Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, established in 2012 by Russian billionaire entrepreneur Yuri Milner. And this new prize came with $3 million—three times what winners of the Nobel Prize get. Moreover, unlike the Nobel Prizes, the money is not shared among the winners, of which there were eight others. "I couldn't believe that each person received $3 million," Kitaev says.

Milner meant the award to come with a significant amount of money; his goal is not only to recognize scientists doing fundamental research, but also to raise their profiles among the general public to equal the likes of actors, sports stars, and other celebrities. "We have a disbalance in the world today that the best minds are not appreciated enough," Milner said at the 2013 prize ceremony.

A year later, theoretical physicist John Schwarz won the 2014 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. Schwarz and his corecipient, Michael Green of the University of Cambridge, were recognized for their efforts to develop a unified theory that describes all the basic forces and particles of nature--a theory of everything.

For more on how this prize puts physics in the spotlight, read Glitz & Qubits on E&S+.