Caltech Welcomes Incoming Students and "Ignites" Excitement for the 2026–27 Academic Year
On Friday, September 25, Caltech formally welcomed its newest class of scholars, including 255 undergraduate students, 173 graduate students, and 40 postdoctoral scholars, at a Convocation ceremony in Beckman Auditorium that marked two beginnings at once.
"I am a first-year, too, at the beginning of my own Caltech journey," President Ray Jayawardhana told the audience in his first Convocation welcome address as the Institute's Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and professor of astronomy.
Speaking as a fellow newcomer, Jayawardhana borrowed words of advice from Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
"On the cover of the Guide is one essential instruction: DON'T PANIC," he said. "Sound advice when setting off across the galaxy. I suspect it may also prove useful at Caltech."
This year's newest scholars arrive with exceptional records of academic achievement and bring perspectives shaped by remarkably varied paths to Pasadena. Admitted through one of the most selective review processes in the country, the incoming undergraduates distinguished themselves by what they've already accomplished and by what they hope to discover next. Among them are a national chess master, an International Economics Olympiad gold medalist, and one of the youngest security researchers in Microsoft's history. Others have already built ventures of their own: One turned a robotics project into a business selling components worldwide, and another co-founded a start-up after cold emailing a researcher while in the 10th grade.
Jayawardhana assured the new arrivals that they had all earned their place at the Institute and expressed confidence in what they would accomplish here.
"You did not arrive here by accident," he said. "You are here because of the talent and drive you have already demonstrated, and because of the promise of what we believe you can do."
He also encouraged new students to nurture the curiosity that brought them to Caltech and embrace what Richard Feynman called "the pleasure of finding things out."
"At Caltech, a course outside your field, an unexpected result in the lab, or a conversation with someone who thinks very differently may send your work in a direction you had not considered," Jayawardhana said. "Don't mistake that for a distraction from your path. Exploration is the path."
Jayawardhana then introduced this year's Convocation keynote speaker, Caltech alumna Tammy Ma (BS '05), a plasma physicist, deputy principal associate director for science & technology at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility & Photon Sciences Directorate, and a member of the team behind the historic 2022 fusion ignition breakthrough at the National Ignition Facility. Centered on the theme of ignition, Ma's keynote traced her role in that breakthrough—where researchers "created a star in the laboratory"—and the decades of collaboration across generations of scientists and engineers that made it possible.
"The achievement of ignition is not the product of a single experiment or a single moment. It was the result of sustained collaboration, big team science, perseverance, and a shared commitment to bold, audacious science," Ma said.
While Ma credits Caltech as an important part of her path to that achievement, she also emphasized how challenging that path can be, recalling a time during a particularly difficult quarter during her first year at the Institute when she was so close to quitting that she began to fill out transfer forms. She shared that her community was the reason she didn't make that choice and charged the incoming class to lean on each other when they encounter difficulties.
"So take care of each other," Ma said. "Earn what you're here to earn. And when it gets hard, remember someone is going to be sitting in a dorm room one night wondering if they belong, and it might be you who keeps them from filling out those forms."
The ceremony also featured remarks from Kevin Gilmartin, vice president and Allen V. C. Davis and Lenabelle Davis Leadership Chair of Student Affairs and William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English, who spoke to the value of mutual support alongside individual achievement.
"You're joining a community that values creative collaboration as much as it values individual achievement, and that takes as much pride in supporting one another as it does in singular discovery. The students beside you, the staff and faculty around you, are your partners in this journey ahead," Gilmartin said.
Current student leaders also addressed the incoming class. Bisrat Kassahun, a fourth-year physics student and president of the Associated Students of the California Institute of Technology (ASCIT), urged students to make the most of their time at Caltech.
"Some advice I wish I had when I was in your shoes is to take risks, be fearless in your pursuit of exciting new things, embrace the opportunities you are afforded here because nowhere else in the world will you get the chance to do the same," Kassahun said.
Adele Breer, an applied physics PhD candidate and chair of the Graduate Student Council (GSC), offered students a horticultural metaphor for their time at Caltech.
"A garden thrives with a small amount of daily watering, not the occasional deluge," Breer said. "As you get to know this campus during your time here, I hope you will come to feel as I do, that this place is an oasis, a garden of the mind engaged in fostering the growth of human potential. You are the gardeners but also the flowers."
At the end of the ceremony, students took part in a new Convocation tradition led by Joseph Greenwell, associate vice president of student life and chief student affairs officer. Greenwell asked students to turn on light sticks and join in singing Caltech's alma mater, "Hail C.I.T.," conducted by choral director Nancy Sulahian, to mark the start of their journey at the Institute.
"Now look around you," Greenwell said. "Each light belongs to someone who will help shape what comes next at Caltech. Your curiosity, your unique voice, your individual sparks are coming together to shine bright as the newest members of this incredible community."
For more than a week leading up to Convocation, incoming students took part in new student orientation programming, which began on September 17 and culminated in Friday's ceremony. Activities ranged from local volunteering to scavenger hunts, offering Caltech's newest arrivals many opportunities to meet one another and settle into life at the Institute.
Following the official Convocation ceremony, the newest Caltech students joined current students, faculty, and staff on Beckman Mall for a community brunch to celebrate the beginning of the new academic year.
"You're all walking in here with a spark. You can spark into a runaway H-bomb or you can spark into a steady star," Ma said in her keynote speech. "The power's the same, but the difference is in the control. For me, Caltech ignited the beginning of my scientific journey, and today each of you carries the capacity for ignition. May your ideas ignite, and may they illuminate your future."