People Spotlights

Eli and Edythe Broad Professor of English

Cindy Weinstein

Caltech is a wonderful place to pursue original research; it lets your interests determine the work you do. There is both a tremendous amount of freedom and an extremely high level of expectation, and these two combine to create a terrific intellectual environment that helps scholars generate their best work."

Professor of Economics

Marina Agranov

There are good reasons to do experiments. Applying theories in the real world before testing them, and ruining someone’s real life, seems too high a cost."

Assistant Professor of Political Science

Michael Gibilisco

Here, political scientists are right next door to economists and right next door to neuroscientists. We often tackle similar problems, like collective decision making, but from very different approaches."

Professor of Political Science

Alexander V. Hirsch

There are other institutions that are wonderful at teaching and wonderful at research. But at Caltech, it seems to me that to be wonderful at teaching means that you teach the students what the frontier of research is—that teaching and research are not different things."

Kay Sugahara Professor of Social Sciences and Statistics

Jonathan N. Katz

Money is very important in politics, but all the previous studies about campaign finance were restricted to relatively large donors, leading to a skewed picture of this important political activity. Given changes in technology, smaller donors are becoming both more numerous and important."

Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience; Allen V. C. Davis and Lenabelle Davis Leadership Chair, Caltech Brain Imaging Center; Director, Caltech Brain Imaging Center

Dean Mobbs

Caltech allows researchers to be risky. Risk is an important part of science. It's where discovery occurs."