Caltech Welcomes President-Elect Ray Jayawardhana at Campus-Wide Event

On January 6, 2026, Caltech welcomed Ray Jayawardhana as the Institute's 10th president during an event for the campus community held on the Athenaeum's West Lawn.

"Ray is a visionary leader who embodies the qualities and attributes that distinguish Caltech and our community of faculty, students, scientists, engineers, and other professionals," said Dave Thompson (MS '78), chair of the Caltech Board of Trustees and chair of the presidential selection committee. "He has deep and broad curiosity for exploring our world and the universe around us. He possesses daring yet thoughtful dispositions for tackling complex problems in new and innovative ways. And he has an unwavering commitment to cultivating the research and educational environment in which shared interest and collaboration will thrive."

Jayawardhana will assume the role of the Institute's next president on July 1, succeeding Thomas F. Rosenbaum, the Institute's Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and professor of physics. In his remarks, Thompson thanked Rosenbaum for his 12 years of dedicated service to the Institute.

Jonas Zmuidzinas (BS '81), the Merle Kingsley Professor of Physics and chair of the presidential search committee, introduced Jayawardhana to the campus community, noting the importance the search committee placed on the community's input. "To be an accomplished scientist or engineer is a prerequisite achievement for any Caltech president," said Zmuidzinas. "At the same time, we also made clear that Caltech's community expects much more. We heard you were looking for a strong communicator; an individual who has a record of leading with integrity, courage, and creativity; who possesses the ability to be a thoughtful and effective steward of JPL; and someone able to build enduring partnerships with Caltech's philanthropic supporters. We understood that we were asking a lot and that finding a candidate with high marks across the board was a nearly impossible goal. We are delighted to share that, in Ray, we have met, if not exceeded, our community's expectations."

In his first address to Caltech students, faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and staff, President-Elect Jayawardhana reflected on his first encounter with Caltech: a viewbook of outer-planet images captured by Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, which he requested from JPL via aerogramme as "a space-obsessed kid growing up in Sri Lanka in the 1980s."

"While the details of that story are personal to me, the spark of curiosity that animates it is universal here [at Caltech]," said Jayawardhana. "That spark may take a different form for each of us, but it is what has made Caltech a magnet for exceptional people from across America and around the world—here on campus, at JPL, at the observatories—and it is evident in our global network of alumni. We have at Caltech a rare concentration of excellence and ambition, united by the urgency to explore fundamental questions."

Regarding his future responsibilities as Caltech's president, Jayawardhana said, "My role, as I see it, is to steward curiosity at scale, to harness the power of bold ideas and support the people who pursue them."

The welcome event also included remarks from Ashlyn Roice, undergraduate president of the Associated Students of the California Institute of Technology (ASCIT), and Zachary Chase, co-chair of the Graduate Student Council (GSC). After the program, the campus community was welcomed to attend a lunch catered by Caltech Dining Services along the Olive Walk.

Jayawardhana will officially begin his tenure as Caltech's president on July 1, 2026.