During the 2023–24 academic year, Caltech recognized two faculty members with distinguished leadership chairs for administrative positions and 13 faculty members with named professorships, the Institute's most distinguished award.
These honors provide faculty with additional resources to advance innovative research ideas while they continue to mentor and train future generations.
Each named professorship brings its own legacy. Many professorships, for instance, have long-standing histories and pass a tradition of discovery and exploration from one academic generation to the next, from one colleague to another. A professorship may also provide a faculty member with an opportunity to forge meaningful connections with the philanthropists who made the award possible.
Leadership chairs generate discretionary funds that enable Institute leaders to support emerging research projects and ideas with potential for scientific and societal impact, and to support Caltech's educational mission and outreach programs.
Caltech is pleased to present its newest cohort of leadership chairs and named professors.
Leadership Chairs
Bethany L. Ehlmann
Professor of Planetary Science
Allen V. C. Davis and Lenabelle Davis Leadership Chair, Keck Institute for Space Studies
Director, Keck Institute for Space Studies
Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences
Bethany Ehlmann's research focuses on the mineralogy and chemistry of planetary surfaces, remote sensing techniques and instruments, astrobiology, and science policy and outreach. Her specific areas of interest include unraveling Mars's environmental history and understanding water in the solar system. Ehlmann is also the principal investigator of Lunar Trailblazer, a NASA mission to map the form, distribution, and abundance of water on the Moon and to understand the lunar water cycle.
Professor Ehlmann joined the Caltech faculty in 2011.
Viviana Gradinaru (BS '05)
Lois and Victor Troendle Professor of Neuroscience and Biological Engineering
Allen V. C. Davis and Lenabelle Davis Leadership Chair, Richard N. Merkin Institute for Translational Research
Director, Center for Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience
Director, Richard N. Merkin Institute for Translational Research
Division of Biology and Biological Engineering
Viviana Gradinaru is interested in brain and body circuits and how they malfunction in neuropsychiatric disorders. To study these systems, she has developed diverse neurotechnologies including optogenetic actuators to precisely control neuronal activity, tissue clearing and imaging methods to map transparent organs, and engineered adeno-associated viral vectors (AAVs) for targeted gene delivery. Technologies developed by Gradinaru are now used by thousands of laboratories worldwide, including through her company Capsida Biotherapeutics, a Caltech spin-off.
Professor Gradinaru joined the Caltech faculty in 2012.
Named Professorships
R. Michael Alvarez
Flintridge Foundation Professor of Political and Computational Social Science
Co-director, Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Science, Society, and Policy
Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences
Michael Alvarez is an expert on electoral politics, from public opinion and political campaigns to election technology and administration and statistical and computational modeling. He is co-director of The Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Science, Society, and Policy (LCSSP), which brings researchers, policymakers, and other stakeholders together to focus on cutting-edge science policy and science ethics. Alvarez is also co-director of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project.
Professor Alvarez joined the Caltech faculty in 1992.
James (Jamie) Bock
Marvin L. Goldberger Professor of Physics
Jet Propulsion Laboratory Senior Research Scientist
Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy
Jamie Bock is a leader in developing new technologies and experiments to study the early universe. He is the principal investigator of NASA's SPHEREx mission, which is set to launch in 2025 and will trace large-scale structures in our universe to answer questions about the birth of our cosmos. He also co-leads the BICEP Array, which carries out precise measurements of CMB polarization from the South Pole to probe the explosive period of rapid growth in our universe called inflation.
Professor Bock joined the Caltech faculty in 2012.
Venkat Chandrasekaran
Kiyo and Eiko Tomiyasu Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Electrical Engineering
Division of Engineering and Applied Science
Venkat Chandrasekaran is an applied mathematician who studies optimization and the information sciences with a focus on effectively extracting insights from data. Some of his group's contributions include tractable algorithms for inverse problems and latent variable modeling, characterizations of tradeoffs between computational and statistical efficiency, and a paradigm for dimension-free optimization. These methods have been applied to problems in water resources modeling, super-resolution imaging, dynamical systems analysis, network inference, and engineering design.
Professor Chandrasekaran joined the Caltech faculty in 2012.
Xie Chen
Eddleman Professor of Theoretical Physics
Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy
Xie Chen is a condensed matter theorist who studies emergent phenomena in large quantum systems. Chen takes models and tools from quantum information theory to study novel phase and phase transitions in condensed matter systems, which often have interesting field theory implications, with the goal of revealing the universal structures hidden behind the complicated microscopic details.
Professor Chen joined the Caltech faculty in 2014.
Michael B. Elowitz
Roscoe Gilkey Dickinson Professor of Biology and Bioengineering
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Division of Biology and Biological Engineering
Michael Elowitz specializes in the fields of synthetic biology and systems biology. His research demonstrates that biological behaviors can be programmed using custom designed molecular circuits; revealed the pervasive role of stochastic fluctuations—or "noise"—in gene expression; and identified a set of biological circuit designs underpinning cellular and multicellular development.
Professor Elowitz joined the Caltech faculty in 2003.
Christopher Martin
Edward C. Stone Professor of Physics
Director, Caltech Optical Observatories
Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy
Christopher Martin is a leader in the development of ground, balloon-based, and space experiments designed to study the intergalactic medium, a network of gas filaments that connects and feeds galaxies across the universe. Formerly, he was the principal investigator of the NASA Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) mission. Recently, he led the development of the Keck Cosmic Web Imager, or KCWI, at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which made the first direct measurements of the largest and most hidden portions of the cosmic web.
Professor Martin joined the Caltech faculty in 1993.
Niles A. Pierce
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Bioengineering
Executive Officer for Biology and Biological Engineering
Division of Biology and Biological Engineering
Niles Pierce is a co-founder of the fields of dynamic nucleic acid nanotechnology and molecular programming. He has developed principles, mechanisms, and algorithms that enable the rational design and construction of dynamic molecular function in a biological context. The Pierce Lab's hybridization chain reaction (HCR) bioimaging technology platform and NUPACK software suite for nucleic acid analysis and design are each used by thousands of laboratories, companies, researchers, entrepreneurs, and students worldwide.
Professor Pierce joined the Caltech faculty in 2000.
Mikhail Shapiro
Max Delbrück Professor of Chemical Engineering and Medical Engineering
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
Mikhail Shapiro develops molecular technologies for noninvasive imaging and control of cellular function and uses those technologies to study basic biology and to create cellular diagnostics and therapeutics. His group takes advantage of naturally evolved biological structures with unique physical properties, using them as starting points for engineering to help image and manipulate cellular and molecular function.
Professor Shapiro joined the Caltech faculty in 2014.
Andrew Thompson
John S. and Sherry Chen Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering
Director, Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Global Environmental Science
Executive Officer for Environmental Science
Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences
Andrew Thompson's research uses a combination of sea-going oceanic observations, remote sensing data, and models to study how the ocean influences global climate through the transport of heat, dissolved gases, and nutrients. His research group is especially interested in the dynamics of polar regions and understanding how the ocean has contributed to recent changes to sea ice and ice sheets as well as the implications for future climate change.
Professor Thompson joined the Caltech faculty in 2011.
Adam Wierman
Carl F Braun Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences
Director, Information Science and Technology
Division of Engineering and Applied Science
Adam Wierman's current research investigates the networked systems that govern our world—such as the electrical grid, data centers, and transportation systems—and aims to identify ways to make these systems greener and more resilient. His group develops new mathematical tools for machine learning and applies them to design novel algorithms and markets in an effort to improve the sustainability and efficiency of systems.
Professor Wierman joined the Caltech faculty in 2007.
Early Career Professorships
Hannah Druckenmiller
Assistant Professor of Economics
William H. Hurt Scholar
Division of Humanities and Social Sciences
Hannah Druckenmiller is an environmental economist who is principally interested in understanding the environmental benefits and economic costs of natural resource protection, and novel ways to quantify these benefits and costs for the sake of future public policy. She is affiliated with the nonprofit Resources for the Future, the National Bureau of Economic Research, and Caltech's Linde Center for Science, Society, and Policy (LCSSP).
Professor Druckenmiller joined the Caltech faculty in 2023.
Georgia Gkioxari
Assistant Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Electrical Engineering
William H. Hurt Scholar
Division of Engineering and Applied Science
Georgia Gkioxari investigates computer perception and understanding with the goal of enhancing the ability of computer systems to recognize and conceptualize visual inputs with the help of machine learning. She aims to design visual perception models that bridge the gap between two-dimensional imagery and our four-dimensional world. She was recently selected as a Google Research Scholar in machine perception and received an Amazon Research Award in generative artificial intelligence.
Professor Gkioxari joined the Caltech faculty in 2023.
Lu Wei
Assistant Professor of Chemistry
Ronald and JoAnne Willens Scholar
Investigator, Heritage Medical Research Institute
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
Lu Wei's research occupies the intersection of optical spectroscopy, chemical biology, and life science. Her group focuses on developing next-generation optical spectroscopy and microscopy. These can then be used to better understand dynamical biological processes, such as cellular metabolism, with enhanced spatial, temporal and molecular precision. Among other honors, Wei received the 2024 Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award from the Biophysical Society and a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Award.
Professor Wei joined the Caltech faculty in 2018.