Community Member Milestones
- Celebrating a recognition:
Isaac Aguilar
Isaac, a second-year PhD student in geobiology, won an Environment and Exposures Research Poster Award for the Caltech volunteer community ash study on the 2025 Eaton Fire. He and other Caltech researchers from the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences presented research at the first annual LA Fires Research Conference hosted by UCLA on January 14.
- Welcome to Caltech:
Lucas Fagan
On January 5, Lucas joined Caltech as a research scientist in the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, where he'll work on building reinforcement learning agents to solve research-level math problems. Prior to this role, Lucas was a visiting student at Caltech and earned his PhD in math from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
- Celebrating a promotion:
Tye Welch
On December 1, Tye was promoted to associate vice president for Audit Services and Institute Compliance, where he previously served as senior director of compliance and interim associate vice president. In this new role, Tye will direct the annual internal audit and compliance plans, facilitate the Institute's enterprise risk management program, and direct numerous advisory projects.
- Welcome to Caltech:
Robbie Nock
Robbie joined Caltech on October 20 as the deputy director of the Center for Technology and Management Education (CTME) in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science, where he will advance the center's custom programs and professional education offerings. He comes to CTME from ArtCenter College of Design, where he led entrepreneurship and professional education programs as an administrator and assistant professor.
- Celebrating a remarkable career:
Cynthia Eller
In December, Cynthia will be retiring after six years of dedicated service at Caltech, three of those years in the early 1980s and three in the 2020s. As a science writer in the Office of Communications and External Relations, she covered research news across all six of Caltech’s academic divisions, but especially the humanities and social sciences division.
- Celebrating a recognition:
Georgia Squyres
On November 12, Georgia was awarded a L'Oréal USA 2025 For Women in Science grant. Georgia is a postdoctoral scholar studying how bacteria coordinate complex tasks within biofilms in the lab of Dianne Newman, Gordon M. Binder/Amgen Professor of Biology and Geobiology and Merkin Institute Professor.