Ray Jayawardhana began his term as Caltech’s 10th president, the Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair, and professor of astronomy. An astrophysicist who studies exoplanets, brown dwarfs, and star formation, he joins Caltech from Johns Hopkins University, where he served as provost. He succeeds Thomas F. Rosenbaum.
In a message emailed to the Caltech community this morning, Jayawardhana described the six months he spent meeting faculty, students, researchers, staff, JPLers, trustees, and alumni before taking office, conversations that ranged from neural circuits to the core curriculum to, in his words, the lore behind the best Ditch Day stacks. He also traced his connection to Caltech and JPL to his childhood in Sri Lanka, when he wrote to JPL asking for images from the Voyager missions and received a viewbook of Jupiter and Saturn in return.
Read more:
His letter to the community, “Hello, Caltech!”
Caltech’s announcement of his first day
His Q&A with Caltech magazine, on his path from Sri Lanka to Pasadena and his priorities as president