News & Events

06-14-13

Caltech's 119th Commencement Ceremony was held on Friday, June 14th, 2013 celebrated the accomplishments of 588 graduates, awarding 256 bachelor's degrees, 96 master's degrees, 2 engineer degrees, and 236 doctoral degrees. The graduates were addressed by the University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman. She used the life and career of Caltech alumnus Frank Robert Capra, one of America's most powerful directors during the 1930s and the directory of It's a Wonderful Life (1946), to inspire the graduating students. She emphasized the main message of the movie "that each of us touches more than we can appreciate". [Facts about the class of 2013]

Tags: Commencement

06-14-13

The student winners of the 2013 Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes were announced at a special luncheon with the Demetriades - Tsafka – Kokkalis family.

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Tags: Pedro Coelho Frances Arnold Michael Olson Kanianthra Chandy James McKone Harry Gray Janna Nawroth John Dabiri Aditya Rajagopal Axel Scherer Guoan Zheng Changhei Yang

06-12-13

Fernando de Goes, a graduate student in Computing and Mathematical Sciences working with Mathieu Desbrun, has received a Google U.S./Canada PhD Student Fellowship for his research on the development of numerical tools for computer graphics and computational physics based on discrete differential geometry. He is one of only 15 winners in the United States and Canada. The Google Fellowship program supports innovative university research in computer science. [Google Research Blog] [List of winners] 

Tags: Fernando de Goes Mathieu Desbrun

06-11-13

Katrina Ligett, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Economics, is one of seven early-career faculty who have received 2013 Microsoft Research Faculty Fellowships. Professor Ligett works on algorithms, particularly online algorithms, algorithmic game theory, and data privacy. The goal of the fellowship is to support academics in the field of computer science who are exploring breakthrough, high-impact research that has the potential to help solve some of today’s most challenging societal problems. [Learn More]

Tags: Katrina Ligett

06-03-13

Computer Science Senior Judy Mou has been working with K. Mani Chandy and Julian Bunn to develop an Android phone and tablet application that could be used to keep communities informed about crisis situations, such as local earthquakes, fires, and pollution hazards. Her application, called a situational awareness application, combines this hazard information with dynamically updated, individualized content, such as traffic on the user's commute, campus events, or news feeds that the user has subscribed to. "The test-case for the application that she is building is whether her classmates and housemates use the application," Chandy says. "She knows that she is building something valuable, and she's excited about it. That's one of the things I like best about working with her." [Learn More]

Tags: Judy Mou Kanianthra Chandy Julian Bunn

05-15-13

Katrina Ligett, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Economics, has been awarded the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award for her 5-year project, “The Value of Privacy”. The CAREER program is NSF's most prestigious awards for junior faculty members. The level and 5-year duration of the awards are designed to enable awardees to develop careers as outstanding teacher-scholars. Awardees are chosen because they exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.

Tags: Katrina Ligett NSF CAREER NSF

04-22-13

Graduate students Matt Faulkner and Annie Liu's paper relating to the Community Seismic Network Project has won the Best Paper Award at the International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN). [Read the paper]

Tags: Matt Faulkner Annie Liu

03-29-13

Kaushik Bhattacharya, Howell N. Tyson, Sr., Professor of Mechanics and Professor of Materials Science, and Oscar P. Bruno, Professor of Applied and Computational Mathematics, have been elected to the 2013 class of Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) fellows. They were nominated for their exemplary research as well as outstanding service to the community. Through their contributions, SIAM Fellows help advance the fields of applied mathematics and computational science.

Tags: Kaushik Bhattacharya Oscar Bruno

03-29-13

Stephen Wolfram (PhD '80 in Theoretical Physics) has been recognized by Caltech with the Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest honor regularly bestowed by the Institute, for his contributions to the fields of computation and physics. Drawing upon his research and discoveries, Wolfram created Mathematica, now considered a standard software-language environment for scientific, technical, and algorithmic computation and software development.  [Caltech Release]

Tags: Stephen Wolfram alumni

03-21-13

Hillary Mushkin, Visiting Professor of Art and Design in Mechanical and Civil Engineering, worked with a group of students taking her new media art history seminar (E/H/Art 89 - the first Caltech course cross-listed in engineering and humanities) to conceptualize, design and fabricate their own original new media artwork using technologies and fabrication methods of their own choice. Students created electroencephalogram (EEG) art, automatic drawing machines, conceptual art-inspired visualizations of mathematical concepts, interactive video projections, electronic instruments and other novel forms. [Photos of the exhibit]

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