After a short speech, the next president of Caltech greeted faculty, staff and students along the path outside the Athenaeum, the Pasadena institute’s dining club that for a century is where legendary scientists shared theories about the cosmos over a meal.
Ray Jayawardhana, the provost at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and an astrophysicist, was introduced on Tuesday, Jan. 6 in front of about 400 cheering onlookers as only the 10th president in the 105-year history of the prestigious institute of science and engineering.
“It will be my great honor to serve you, work alongside you, learn from you and experience your excellence in action,” he told the crowd.
Jayawardhana takes the helm on July 1, 2026 from Thomas F. Rosenbaum who will have served 12 years as president of Caltech, officially called the California Institute of Technology. He was chosen from more than 100 applicants after a year-long international search, said David Thompson, chair of the Caltech board of trustees.
“I am deeply honored to have been selected as Caltech’s 10th president and to join this remarkable community of trailblazers,” said Jayawardhana in prepared remarks. “For more than a century, Caltech has achieved an extraordinary and enduring impact from a deceptively simple formula: empowering brilliant minds to explore important questions with imagination and courage and making bold commitments to efforts others might consider too risky or far-fetched.”
“The board’s decision was unanimous and highly enthusiastic,” Thompson said. “He has a deep and broad curiosity for exploring our world and the universe around us. He will be a forceful ambassador for Caltech.”
Jayawardhana, 54, received a bachelor’s of science degree in astronomy and physics from Yale University and a PhD in astronomy from Harvard.
His work includes investigating the origins and evolution of planets and planetary systems, as well as the formation of stars and brown dwarfs. He has used the largest telescopes, including the W.M. Keck Observatory which Caltech co-manages with the University of California, and the James Webb Space Telescope to observe planets and exoplanets, always with an eye toward assessing whether there are signs of life beyond Earth.
When asked if life existed outside of our planet in an interview Tuesday, he responded: “We don’t have evidence of life elsewhere but that is the excitement of the quest. It is a basic question for us as human beings, as well as us as astronomers.”
As a child growing up in Sri Lanka, he sent away for pictures of new images of planets taken by Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, space probes launched by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in La Cañada Flintridge, the NASA facility overseen by Caltech.
“I still remember rushing home from school, getting a large manilla envelope from the mail with the unmistakable JPL logo. Inside were dozens of spectacular images of Jupiter and Saturn and their moons and rings,” he said. “Looking at those photographs, I could not possibly have imagined that my own thoughts of exploration would lead me here.”
That “spark of curiosity” as a child continued throughout his career, he said, and he labeled that as something deep within Caltech’s core. “My role, as I see it, is to steward that curiosity at scale,” he said
Exploring the unknown reminded him of a T.S. Eliot line from the poem “Little Gidding”: “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time,” he quoted.
“That memory tells you a little bit about me. But it speaks much more to Caltech’s extraordinary global outreach and impact,” he concluded.
Research into black holes and in general, outer space, to studying the local groundwater and air quality, the latter an emphasis after the twin fires in L.A. County exactly one year ago, could face battles over federal funding.
In his public remarks, he said Caltech must navigate “a rapidly shifting landscape” in funding, public trust and expectations.”
Trump has clashed with U.S. research universities, reflected in his administration’s freezing of billions in federal funding and legal battles over academic and admissions policies.
“The decades-long partnership with the universities and federal government has been incredible,” Jayawardhana said in an interview. “We need to really double down on those investments we are enjoying now. It matters for the nation’s economics and for our people.”
FILE – Caltech is putting up 25 air monitoring sites on rooftops and poles in Altadena (some in Pasadena) to measure PM10 pollution (particles) that could be stirred up by ash and debris removal from burned out homes and businesses. Nikos Kanakaris, Haroula Baliaka and Coleen Roehl install an air monitoring system on the roof at Eliot Arts Magnet Academy in Altadena on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles daily News/SCNG)In his remarks, he referenced the tragedy from the Eaton and Palisades fires of Jan. 7 and Jan. 8, 2025. Caltech replaced dozens of air pollution monitors in Altadena destroyed by the Eaton fire, so those returning could get real-time data on the quality of the local air.
“It is incumbent upon us to contribute to the local and global communities, to be meaningful partners in good times and bad,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “To engage. To do what we can to help our community.”
Jayawardhana is a renowned scientist, researcher, administrator and author.
He has co-authored 180 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals, has written articles in The Economist, the New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. His children’s picture book, “Child of the Universe” was published by Penguin Random House and was an homage to his fascination with the heavens as a child in Sri Lanka.
Asteroid 4668 Rayjay is named after him.
Jayawardhana likes to travel and has visited more than 60 countries and all seven continents. In his explorations, he was at mountaintop observatories in Chile and Hawaii, collected meteorites in Antarctica and chased a solar eclipse in western Mongolia.
“Ray is a leader of exceptional distinction who brings a complement of qualities — as a pioneering astrophysics researcher, respected university administrator, and compelling science communicator — that together will ensure Caltech builds on its legacy of transformational research and exploration to benefit humanity,” said Thompson.
After the board received 125 qualified applicants, the number was reduced to 25, then three, before he was chosen. Thompson said all were very good, but that Jayawardhana, whom he called “RayJay” was a notch above.
“I am humbled and inspired by the leaders who’ve come before me and by the legacy of excellence and ambition that defines this unparalleled institution,” Jayawardhana said. “I look forward to helping write Caltech’s next daring chapter of discovery and innovation.”
Caltech is one of the leading science and engineering institutions in the world. The faculty and alumni have earned 48 Nobel Prizes.
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Caltech President Thomas Rosenbaum announces retirement Ray Jayawardhana named 16th provost of Johns Hopkins University | Hub Bill Gates tells an audience at Caltech that the doomsday scenario is wrong Jolted by the Eaton fire, JPL/Caltech employees turn attention to Earth in new air testing Caltech’s Aerospace Department to receive $50 million gift from trustee couple
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