Elizabeth Tito Named President of the Associates of Caltech
August 17, 2009
PASADENA, Calif.-Start-up company investor and former financial economist Elizabeth Tito will take the helm of the Associates of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) this October. Mrs. Tito will direct programs and activities to ensure that the 83-year-old organization continues to fulfill its founders' goals of supporting Caltech as a world leader in science and engineering.
Mrs. Tito is an active member of Tech Coast Angels (TCA), Southern California's largest network of angel investors, who invest in early-stage technology and life-science companies. Born in Russia, Mrs. Tito started her education in physics and later transitioned to economics. She holds graduate degrees in physics and economics from Moscow State University, UCLA, and Stanford, and has published numerous academic articles. Prior to becoming an angel investor, Mrs. Tito was a principal with CRA International, a Boston-based company that offers economic, finance, and business consulting services to corporate clients, law firms, and governments worldwide, where she specialized in business valuations and complex financial litigation. She lives in Pacific Palisades with her husband, Dennis Tito, founder, CEO, and chairman of Wilshire Associates, Inc.
The Titos joined the Caltech Associates in 2004. Mrs. Tito has been on the organization's board since 2005, serving on various committees and chairing the membership committee. She succeeds technology entrepreneur and Trilience Research chairman Fred Blum (Caltech PhD '68, physics) as president.
The 1,460 couples and individuals who hold memberships in the Associates come together for programs and tours on the Caltech campus, as well as in Los Angeles, New York, and the Bay Area, and learn about recent advances at Caltech directly from leading researchers. Some also participate in international and domestic travel led by Caltech faculty. The group, composed of entrepreneurs, community leaders, philanthropists, friends of science, alumni, and faculty, supports Caltech by generating word of mouth about Caltech discoveries and technologies and through membership contributions and gifts to specific projects of interest. Members have contributed funds for more than 37 campus buildings and 52 endowed professorships and have given millions for fellowships and scholarships.
Caltech is recognized for its highly select student body of 900 undergraduates and 1,200 graduate students, and for its outstanding faculty. Since 1923, Caltech faculty and alumni have garnered 32 Nobel Prizes and five Crafoord Prizes. In addition to its prestigious on-campus research programs, Caltech operates the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the W. M. Keck Observatory in Mauna Kea, the Palomar Observatory, and the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). Caltech is a private university in Pasadena, California. For more information, visit http://www.caltech.edu.
