Hello again from Housing and Dining Services! We hope everyone has been having a great term. We wanted to take a moment to drop in and provide some quick information as we head into the final stretch of the academic year.
Frequent passersby of southwest campus will have noticed a recent shift in the landscape along Wilson Avenue. Large areas of grass have turned brown and crispy, in apparent contrast with the springtime bloom of the surroundings (Figure 1). While it may look unsightly now, this is only the first step in a multi-year project by the Caltech Facilities department to restore this land’s original, natural beauty.
Caltech formally dedicated the Lynn Booth and Kent Kresa Department of Aerospace on April 8, marking the culmination of a $50 million endowment from Trustee Lynn Booth and Life Member Kent Kresa that permanently names and supports one of the Institute’s flagship programs.
On March 31, Caltech Student Affairs introduced the Orange Folder, a centralized online resource designed to help faculty and staff recognize and respond to students in distress. Announced in a campus-wide letter from Joseph Greenwell, Associate Vice President of Student Life and Chief Student Affairs Officer, the initiative aims to consolidate existing support resources into a single, accessible guide. The tool provides practical steps for identifying warning signs, responding to students in the moment, and connecting them with appropriate campus services.
We hope your first week of the spring term was a success! As we settle into the rhythm of the new term, Housing and Dining Services are back with our collaborative column in the Tech. We are excited to keep you updated on housing initiatives and the latest culinary experiences we’re cooking up to support our community through the final stretch of the academic year.
Carl Grillmair, an astronomer at Caltech’s IPAC science and data center for astronomy and planetary science, died on February 16. He was 67. His death has shaken the Caltech community, where colleagues remember as both a creative scientist and a foundational member of IPAC’s research programs.
On March 4, the Senate Commerce Committee voted to advance the bipartisan NASA Authorization Act of 2026, authorizing a $24.7 billion budget for this fiscal year, extending operations for the International Space Station through 2032, and — for the first time — backing plans for a permanent crewed presence on the Moon.
When I first met Pedro Neves, a visiting researcher from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, it was at a Watson Lecture in October 2025. Our shared native language, Portuguese, provided an immediate shorthand, but the conversation quickly moved to the mechanics of the Sun-Earth L1 Lagrange point.
Fourth-year mathematics undergraduate Akshar Ramkumar has been selected as one of 16 recipients of the Churchill Scholarship, which provides funding for a one-year master’s degree at the University of Cambridge.
