A Time of Renewal

September 28, 2026

Dear members of the Caltech and JPL communities,

A few weeks ago, on a balmy morning, I stood with Caltech and JPL colleagues watching NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope rise from Florida marshlands on a pillar of fire and begin its journey to L2. I looked on in awe as the ingenuity and daring of thousands took flight, including those at JPL, who designed and built its coronagraph instrument, and our colleagues at IPAC, who will support its scientific mission. It was soaring ambition in action, reflecting a profound sense of shared mission and the boundless potential of human curiosity.

A similar sense of promise and purpose marks the start of the new academic year. Our campus is buzzing with new and returning students and scholars, and it's been energizing to connect with so many of them. Recently, I lent a hand to the welcome crew at move-in, though I confess that I spent more time talking with our newest students and their families than hauling their belongings. Their excitement was infectious and reminded me how thoroughly students animate the intellectual and communal life of the Institute. Over the past few weeks, that same vitality has met me across campus, whether chatting with JPL interns at the Red Door or visiting the North Houses with an RA. The highlight for my family might be the generous offer from a postdoc to show my kids the glass frogs in his lab—an invitation they are clamoring to accept!

In hundreds of conversations across our community since January, I have continually encountered a familiar drive for excellence and a shared belief in the vast terrain of discovery that still lies ahead of us. At Caltech, it's the unknown that energizes us. Our ambition finds expression through the search for new insights and deeper understanding at every scale: from revealing long-predicted patterns in quantum matter and finding clues to cancer in jellyfish cells, to harnessing AI to protect voters from misinformation and—through the recently announced PRIMA mission—opening a transformative far-infrared window to the cosmos. What unites our community's disparate pursuits is the restless pull toward the knowledge just out of reach and the unshakeable conviction that no question is too daunting for curiosity to tackle.

Even as we look toward future horizons, the coming year provides opportunities to honor the extraordinary milestones that brought us here. This year, we will mark the centennial of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, whose discoveries have changed our understanding of Earth and the worlds beyond it, and 90 years of JPL, whose missions have extended humanity's reach across the solar system. In November, Voyager 1 will offer an astonishing measure of that legacy when it becomes the first human-made object to reach a distance of one light-day from home.

My predecessor Thomas Everhart once observed, "In times like these, there need to be a few places that look ahead and still dare to do the most ambitious things that human beings can accomplish." Together, we will ensure that Caltech remains that place. That is the singular promise of this community, and I look forward to fulfilling it alongside all of you in the year ahead.

Welcome to the new academic year!

Sincerely,

Ray