Impact
Advocating for Science and Creating Social Impact
Science has the power to change the world for the better, and Caltech is committed to using that power at the local, national, and global levels.
Caltech Science Exchange
The Caltech Science Exchange is a free public resource that offers trustworthy answers, clear explanations, and fact-driven conversation on critical topics in science and technology such as artificial intelligence, quantum physics, and COVID-19 at scienceexchange.caltech.edu.
President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST)
Nobel Laureate Frances Arnold serves as co-chair of PCAST. John Dabiri (PhD ’05), Caltech’s Centennial Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, is also a member of the council along with Caltech Trustee Joe Kiani and several Institute alumni including Arati Prabhakar (PhD ’85), who is PCAST co-chair and the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
Caltech Center for Science, Society, and Public Policy (CSSPP)
Established in 2023, the CSSPP provides a forum for research and debate on topics at the intersection of science and society. Its goal is twofold: to learn about and share current science policy and to shape science policy by building on Caltech's scientific expertise. Research pursued within and funded by the center across Caltech engages with the societal impact of scientific advances or explores the regulatory landscapes of specific scientific domains.
The Caltech-Hollywood Connection
Institute researchers have served as scientific advisors on films such as Interstellar, Ant-Man, and Nope.
Its alumni have helped develop the technology that brings many of Hollywood’s most celebrated animated films to life, including Frozen, Zootopia, and How to Train Your Dragon.
The Caltech campus has appeared in TV shows as wide-ranging as Modern Family, The West Wing, and The Big Bang Theory (whose main characters are Caltech physicists).
Caltech Alumni Association (CAA)
Caltech’s 25,000-plus living alumni know that advancing humanity through science and technology is a team effort. By creating and nurturing an active alumni community around the globe, the CAA works to ensure that those individuals can live their best lives as they build momentum, expand possibilities, and spark new ideas and relationships. This is why Caltech alumni are behind the world’s foremost efforts to solve unknowns, project what-ifs, and pioneer never-been-done-befores.
Caltech Associates
For nearly 100 years, the Caltech Associates have helped propel Caltech's mission of discovery while forging lifelong connections between their members. The mission of the more than 1,700 Associates is to create a better world by philanthropically supporting the Institute through membership dollars that provide crucial unrestricted funding of pathbreaking research, seeding innovations, and helping elevate the impact of Caltech science and engineering. Since the Associates' founding in 1926, members have contributed funds toward 37 campus buildings, 52 endowed professorships, and countless fellowships and scholarships.
Awards
Caltech students, faculty, alumni, postdocs, and trustees receive top honors for their bold work to change the world through science and technology.
Members of the Caltech community have earned:
Nobel Prizes
National Medals of Science
National Medals of Technology and Innovation
Subra Suresh, a Caltech Moore Scholar and former visiting professor of engineering, received the National Medal of Science in 2023 along with Caltech physicist Barry Barish.
Entrepreneurship and Industry
Through hundreds of startups and thousands of patents, Caltech's ambitious thinkers and inventors make their mark and find success through entrepreneurial endeavors and industrial innovation, spawning. hundreds of startups and earning thousands of patents for their efforts.
The Office of Technology Transfer and Corporate Partnerships (OTTCP) develops collaborations with industry and nurtures an entrepreneurial environment.
active U.S. patents
Caltech-affiliated start-ups launched over the last decade
deployed by the Caltech Seed Fund each year to help promising Caltech-affiliated start-ups get off the ground
Caltech Innovation Center
Bill Gross Prize
Serial entrepreneur and Caltech Trustee Bill Gross (BS '81) returned to campus in 2023 to teach a new course on entrepreneurship for Caltech students. He also established the Bill Gross Prize for Entrepreneurship, in which undergraduate or graduate students who submit a business plan to launch a product, a process, or a novel use for an existing technology compete to win $100,000. OTTCP also oversees the The Timothy D. Ryan Summer Entrepreneurship Program to help students, especially undergraduates, develop their innovative ideas into novel commercial products or services.
Center for Technology & Management Education (CTME)
The CTME customizes unique learning experiences for organizations and their people, working one-on-one with leadership to design and deliver practical programs and certificate courses. The center offers individuals professional education opportunities that focus on critical thinking, real-world instruction, and flexible programming, and works with organizations to co-design cohesive learning and development programs for everyone from senior executives and emerging leaders to the professionals and specialists who manage day-to-day execution.