Conversations with Caltech Faculty
Caltech's professorial and research faculty engage undergraduate and graduate students in diverse learning and research opportunities.
Get to know faculty outside of the classroom by joining us for our Conversations with Caltech Faculty program series! Click here to join the conversation.
Elena Mantovan
Thursday, May 5 at 12:00pm
Hameetman Conference Room
Elena Mantovan works in Arithmetic Geometry and Number Theory. In particular, her research focuses on the study of moduli of abelian varieties and Barsottti-Tate groups, and on the arithmetic theory of Shimura varieties and their local models. She is mainly interested in questions that arise within the framework of the Langlands program, investigating the connection between automorphic forms and Galois representations.
Melany Hunt
Wednesday, May 11 at 12:00pm
Brennan Conference Room, CSS 345
Melany L. Hunt is the Dotty and Dick Hayman Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Her research work involves transport and mechanics in multiphase systems, including granular material flows, dense liquid-solid flows, fluidized beds, powders, and booming sand dunes. She received her bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis and her masters and doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. At Caltech she has served in a variety of roles, including executive officer of mechanical engineering and vice provost. She won the 2019 Feynman Teaching Prize and the 2019 James King Award from the CCID for supporting student diversity. She is actively engaged in Caltech’s efforts around diversity, equity, and inclusion, recently chairing the EAS DEI Committee and is working on a project entitled Giving Voice: Supporting Gender Inclusivity in STEM Labs and Classrooms.
Richard Murray
Monday, May 16
Hameetman Conference Room
Richard M. Murray received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from California Institute of Technology in 1985 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1988 and 1991, respectively. He is currently the Thomas E. and Doris Everhart Professor of Control & Dynamical Systems and Bioengineering at Caltech. Murray's research is in the application of feedback and control to networked systems, with applications in biology and autonomy. Current projects include analysis and design of biomolecular feedback circuits, synthesis of discrete decision-making protocols for reactive systems, and design of highly resilient architectures for autonomous systems.
Hosea Nelson
Thursday, May 19
Hameetman Conference Room
Hosea earned a B.S. in Chemistry from University of California at Berkeley in 2004 and a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 2012 with Brian Stoltz. After postdoctoral training at University of California at Berkeley with Dean Toste, Hosea joined the UCLA faculty in 2015. In 2021, Hosea became a professor of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology. He is an avid fisherman and motorsports enthusiast (there are even pictures of him on the web wearing a NASCAR hat). Like most native San Franciscans, he spends most of his time talking about how much he loves the Giants, hates the Dodgers, and how much better S.F. is than L.A.
Tim Colonius
Tuesday, May 24
Brennan Conference Room, CSS 345
Tim Colonius is the Frank and Ora Lee Marble Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. He is also holds the Cecil and Sally Drinkward Leadership Chair and is Executive Officer for Mechanical and Civil Engineering. He received his B.S. from the University of Michigan in 1987 and M.S and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in 1988 and 1994, respectively. He and his research team use numerical simulations to study a range of problems in fluid dynamics, including aeroacoustics, flow control, instabilities, shock waves, and bubble dynamics. Prof. Colonius also investigates medical applications of ultrasound, and is a member of the Medical Engineering faculty at Caltech. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the Acoustical Society of America. He was the recipient of the 2018 AIAA Aeroacoustics Award, and the 2021 Stanley Corrsin Award from the American Physical Society. In 2020-2021, he chaired an Institute committee on improving diversity in graduate admissions.