People Spotlights

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."

Professor of English and Visual Culture

Catherine Jurca

We live in a world of images and screens, and visual literacy is an important part of being an educated, thoughtful person in the world."

Professor of Comparative Literature

Jocelyn Holland

The humanities have the practical function of giving students something they wouldn't otherwise have. The humanities classroom is a space where they can take a step back from their scientific work and learn to think about the world in a different way."

Professor of History

Warren C. Brown

In my classes, students learn the craft of the medieval historian: to read closely the often difficult primary sources from medieval Europe; push past but also take into account their perspectives, assumptions, and biases, as much as possible; and to assemble what they have learned into persuasive written arguments."

All Spotlights