Division News
CCE Holiday Celebration
On December 12, 2025, CCE wrapped up the season with our annual Holiday Celebration in the Resnick Sustainability Institute Breezeway. This year's event featured live music from the Caltech Jazz Band, delicious food and drinks, and a special moment to honor Joe Drew, CCE Manager for Facilities and Stockroom Operations, for his 30+ years of dedicated service to Caltech.
31 Years of Service: Thank You, Joe Drew!
Joe Drew, CCE’s Facilities and Stockroom Operations Manager, will conclude more than 30 years of service to Caltech — including 26 years within CCE — when he retires in 2026.
Joe began his Caltech career in 1994 as a Crew Gardener in the Grounds Section and, after a few years, joined the Division’s stockroom as a Stock Clerk. From there, he continued to grow into increasingly senior roles, and in 2013, he was appointed Manager of Facilities and Stockroom Operations
For decades, Joe has played a pivotal role in supporting the evolving needs of the Division. Whether establishing laboratories for new faculty, guiding CCE through rapidly changing procedures during the height of the pandemic, or swiftly resolving issues with his deep knowledge of the Division’s operations, his contributions have been invaluable to faculty, students, and staff alike.
Thank you, Joe, for your unwavering commitment and for helping shape CCE into what it is today.
Shaved Ice Undergrad Social
The Undergraduate Social continued its growing tradition on September 24, 2025, when incoming Caltech students met and chatted with faculty, grad students, and staff on Beckman Mall — all while keeping cool with Kona Ice.
Named Lectures
Robert W. Vaughan Lecture in Chemical Engineering
Robert W. Vaughan Lecture in Chemical Engineering was held on October 9, 2025. Markita Landry, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at University of California, Berkeley, delivered her talk titled "Neurochemical Probes to Study the Formation of Stable Peer-Relationships." The yearly lectures recognize outstanding research. Robert W. Vaughan was at the center of developments of high-resolution, solid-state NMR techniques at the time of his untimely death in 1979. The objective of the Vaughan Lectureship is to honor distinguished young scientists in any of the fields of Chemical Engineering, Chemical Physics or Applied Physics.
John D. Roberts Lecture
On October 8, 2025, Neil Garg (PhD '05), the Distinguished Kenneth N. Trueblood Professor of Chemistry, UCLA, gave his Roberts Lecture presentation, "Transient Strained Intermediates 70+ Years Later: Cyclic Allenes, Anti-Bredt Olefins, and More." John D. ("Jack") Roberts, was an Institute Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, at Caltech and former provost. He was a pioneer in the field of physical organic chemistry and brought nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to organic chemistry.
Peter B. Dervan Lecture
Peter Schultz, President and CEO of Scripps Research and the L.S. “Sam” Skaggs Presidential Chair, gave his talk titled, "Adding New Chemistries to the Central Dogma" and "A New Vision for Nonprofit Research" on November 19, 2025 as the invited speaker of the Peter B. Dervan Lecture. The lecture was established by Dervan's research group alumni in 2016 to celebrate his 70th birthday. Dervan, the Bren Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus, pioneered studies directed toward understanding the chemical principles for the sequence specific recognition of DNA. The objective of the lectureship is to bring to campus distinguished scientists active at the interface of chemistry and biology.
Safety Day 2025
On September 11, 2025, the division held its biennial Safety Day— a daylong event teaching grad students, postdocs and researchers the importance of safety in and of out our labs.
The day kicked off with a presentation from UCLA’s Prof. Craig Merlic on lessons learned from three decades of research. Other information sessions included topics such as biosafety, mental health and building safe lab culture. Students participated in practical demonstrations of emergency shower washes, fire extinguisher training, and appropriately handling of pyrophorics. The event wrapped up with taco trucks and raffle giveaways on the Bechtel Mall.
Inaugural Meeting of the Marcus Center for Theoretical Chemistry
The Marcus Center for Theoretical Chemistry held its inaugural meeting as part of a two day event on Monday, July 21 and Tuesday, July 22, 2025 and was filled with presentations and a poster session. Invited speakers included:
- Anastassia Alexandrova (UCLA)
- Martin Z. Bazant (MIT)
- David N. Beratan (Duke University)
- Emily A. Carter (Princeton University)
- Bingqing Cheng (UC Berkeley)
- Glenn H. Fredrickson (UC Santa Barbara)
- Todd Gingrich (Northwestern University)
- Sharon Hammes-Schiffer (Princeton University)
- Aditi S. Krishnapriyan (UC Berkeley)
- David T. Limmer (UC Berkeley)
- Shaul Mukamel (UC Irvine)
- Ahmad K. Omar (UC Berkeley)
- Jian Qin (Stanford University)
- Joseph E. Subotnik (Princeton University)
- Gregory A. Voth (University of Chicago)
The event was especially rememberable as it coincided with Rudy Marcus's 102nd Birthday, which attendees, faculty and staff gathered to celebrate!
