Caltech Fund

10/15/2026

Meet Riya! A current undergraduate student featured in our fall appeal. You can support the work of dedicated students like Riya by making a gift through the Caltech Fund: fund.caltech.edu/give-2027

10/12/2026

Growing up, Lu Li (MS ’15) didn't know that her parents—professors of chemistry and physics—had been anonymously paying the tuition of some of their most financially vulnerable students.

Now, Li (pictured with the late Nobel Laureate David Baltimore, Caltech's seventh president) and her husband have taken up the philanthropic mantle by creating the Li Foundation. Through the foundation, Li has created the Li Innovation Fund to support research by Division of Engineering and Applied Science faculty Adam Wierman and Steven Low

Read more: https://giving.caltech.edu/news/The-Li-Innovation-Fund-Supports-Research-that-Drives-Human-Progress

09/24/2026

This National Postdoc Appreciation Week, we are thankful to the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation for a new grant supporting postdoctoral researchers across five academic divisions.

Read more: https://giving.caltech.edu/news/Gordon-and-Betty-Moore-Foundation-Grant-Supports-Postdoctoral-Fellows

08/21/2026

At Caltech, Richard Blish (BS '63, MS '64, PhD '67) was taught by three Nobel laureates: theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, nuclear physicist William Fowler, and physicist Carl Anderson, who discovered the positron.

For more than 40 years, Blish has supported the Caltech Fund to help others access an education that instills the belief you can solve any problem put to you.

"Throughout my whole career, there were things I had to learn along the way," he explained. "Caltech prepared me for that."

Read his story: https://giving.caltech.edu/news/Triple-Graduate-Grows-Legacy-of-Support

08/13/2026

Masoud Sharif’s (PhD ’06) doctoral research helped establish the mathematical basis for limiting signal spikes while transmitting large volumes of data. The findings helped lay the groundwork for today's 4G and 5G networks.

Receiving a graduate fellowship gave Sharif the chance to study at Caltech. Now he’s creating that chance for others by endowing the Sharif Family Engineering Graduate Fellowship.

Read his story: https://initiativeforstudents.caltech.edu/story-listings/Sharif-Family-Fellowship-Invests-in-the-Next-Generation-of-Researchers/

08/05/2026

Some of Tony Bakke’s (PhD ’78) fondest memories of Caltech are of the bonds he formed within the campus community—playing tenor saxophone in the Caltech Jazz Band, chess games with his neighbor in graduate student housing, and conversations with people in many academic fields.

“Having been in that environment opened so many doors for me,” he says. “A Caltech degree gives you a leg up in so many situations."

To help ensure these experiences are available for more students, he created the Tony Bakke Graduate Student Support Fund to invest in community-building programming and mentorship opportunities.

Read more: https://initiativeforstudents.caltech.edu/story-listings/Fostering-Connection-for-Graduate-Students/

07/30/2026

US Olympian and Caltech Athletics Hall of Honor inductee Phil Conley (BS ’56) and Frances Conley, the first tenured female neurosurgeon in the United States, extend their legacy with a $30 million bequest to Caltech.

Read their story:

Phil Conley, inducted into the Caltech Athletics Hall of Honor in 2014, and Frances Conley, the first tenured female neurosurgeon in the United States, leave a lasting legacy to the Institute.

07/23/2026

This alumni couple have endowed a SURF, which they’ve named Ingenuity, so that a new generation of students can engage in research and discover where their curiosity takes them.

"Vlad and I entered Caltech and met at frosh camp," Jean Wang says. "In the years since, we've grown in many dimensions including having a family, and we're happy to be able to share and give back to the community together."

Read their story: https://initiativeforstudents.caltech.edu/story-listings/alumni-establish-ingenuity-surf-to-support-research-that-could-lead-to-the-unexpected/

06/26/2026

Mike Klein (BS ’79) had a lifelong love of science and engineering. In high school, he built his own six-foot-tall telescope, even grinding the glass by hand to make the curved mirror.

"That telescope got him into Caltech," says his wife of over 43 years, June Rumiko Klein. He had also used that telescope to show June the moon and distant planets on one of their first dates. They were married just nine months later.

After his death, June established the Michael F. Klein Scholarship to honor his passion for physics.

Read more:

A successful entrepreneur and engineer in the semiconductor industry, Michael "Mike" F. Klein (BS '79) was also a lifelong admirer of all things physics. When Mike passed away last November, his family chose to honor his memory with a scholarship in his name for undergraduates with demonstrated fina...

06/23/2026

When Jerrell Watts (MS '96, PhD '98) arrived at Caltech as a graduate student, neural networks were more promise than practice.

Three decades later, Watts is now head of algorithmic trading at Point72 Asset Management and has helped to spearhead a $3 million gift to leverage AI for scientific discovery. The Point72 Artificial Intelligence Research Program at Caltech will fund graduate students, computing resources, and large-scale data production while encouraging collaboration across disciplines through the use of AI.

Read more: https://giving.caltech.edu/news/Point72-Gift-Funds-AI-Research-Program-at-Caltech