Caltech Inaugurates Its 10th President: Astrophysicist Ray Jayawardhana Formally Installed in Pasadena
PASADENA, Calif. — The California Institute of Technology (Caltech), in Pasadena, Los Angeles County, California, formally inaugurated astrophysicist Ray Jayawardhana as its 10th president on the morning of October 29, in a ceremony on Beckman Mall themed "First Light" — in astronomy, the moment a telescope opens its eye to the universe for the first time. Jayawardhana took office on July 1; the ceremony marked his formal installation, with remarks from trustees, faculty, students and alumni, and was livestreamed.
In his inaugural address, Jayawardhana returned to the "first light" theme: science stands at a moment of breathtaking possibility, but public trust is fraying and pressure is mounting to measure the value of inquiry by the immediacy of its returns, and scientists should remain optimistic amid uncertainty. He has described Caltech — fewer than 2,400 students and an acceptance rate below 4 percent — as "really small but truly mighty." About $73 million in donations has reportedly been pledged since he took office in July.
The inauguration program began the previous evening, October 28, with "The Brave New Space Age," a public forum at Beckman Auditorium featuring NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, among others, on commercial spaceflight and the return to the Moon and Mars. Caltech manages NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena.
Born in Sri Lanka, Jayawardhana wrote to JPL as a teenager asking for Voyager photographs of the outer planets — his first link to the Institute. He earned a bachelor's degree in astronomy and physics from Yale University in 1994 and a PhD in astronomy from Harvard University in 2000, taught at the University of Michigan and the University of Toronto, served as dean of Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences, and was provost of Johns Hopkins University from 2023 to 2026. Caltech's Board of Trustees named him the Institute's 10th president on January 6, 2026, succeeding Thomas Rosenbaum, who served 12 years. News reports note he is the first astronomer, and the first South Asian American, to lead Caltech.
As a scholar, Jayawardhana investigates the origin and evolution of planets and planetary systems and the formation of stars and brown dwarfs; he has co-authored more than 180 scientific papers and is a science team member for the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRISS instrument. An acclaimed science writer, he has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Carl Sagan Medal, and asteroid 4668 Rayjay is named after him.
Pasadena is also home to Panda Restaurant Group, founded by Chinese American entrepreneurs Andrew Cherng and Peggy Cherng, whose ties to Caltech run deep. In 2017 the couple gave $30 million to endow the Andrew and Peggy Cherng Department of Medical Engineering — the first endowed department in Caltech's history — and Peggy Cherng serves as a Caltech trustee. The Institute has quoted the couple, who built their business in Pasadena over four decades, calling Caltech a "shining star of Pasadena."
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Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：加州理工学院第十任校长、天体物理学家Ray Jayawardhana在梵蒂冈天文台的望远镜旁。照片：Adebart1，CC BY-SA 4.0，经Wikimedia Commons。 / Caltech's 10th president, astrophysicist Ray Jayawardhana, beside the Vatican Observatory telescope. Photo: Adebart1, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
