Kip Thorne's Statement on the Appointment of David Baltimore as Caltech President
May 13, 1997
The faculty's presidential search committee is enthusiastic about the trustees' selection of David Baltimore as Caltech's new president. He will be an outstanding successor to Tom Everhart, for whom we have such high respect.
The coming decade will be an era of unparalleled advances in biology, in large measure as a result of growing intellectual ties to engineering, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and the earth sciences. Nobody understands this more clearly than David Baltimore and nobody, I believe, has greater wisdom about the complex intellectual and societal issues that are arising from biology and its interdisciplinary interfaces. This insight and wisdom make Baltimore an exciting choice for the Caltech presidency.
Dr. Baltimore has been an inspiration to his students and colleagues in articulating and inculcating a vision of the relevance of science to society. The search committee sees him as eminently qualified to lead Caltech into the 21st century because of this vision, his exceptional wisdom and intellectual abilities, his creativity, his remarkable leadership skills, and his dedication to education as well as research.
Dr. Baltimore's colleagues have described him to us as subtle, perceptive, and keenly insightful about people and complex issues, and as having the mind of a humanist as well as a scientist. Caltech's faculty, students, staff, alumni, and friends will find him a fascinating person with whom to work and from whom to learn.
