In an interview with The Times, Jayawardhana, 55, the first astronomer and first South Asian American to lead Caltech, said the institute needs to \u201cfind clarity at a time of change and uncertainty\u201d driven by artificial intelligence, shifting federal policy and global events.<\/p>\n
He takes over as Caltech faces its most consequential threat: NASA has opened JPL\u2019s management contract to outsiders for the first time in its history, forcing the institute into a high-stakes competition. Potentially dozens of institutions are in the mix, possibly including the University of California, Texas A&M and USC, whose representatives attended a briefing at JPL last week to learn about the opportunity to manage the laboratory.<\/p>\n
In addition, Caltech, Stanford and seven other campuses are under investigation by the Labor Department for potential fraud in their use of J-1 visas to bring in international scholars.<\/p>\n
Jayawardhana defended the decades-old partnership between higher education institutions and Washington, which pours billions of dollars into research universities. But he said universities must \u201caccept responsibility\u201d for delivering value to taxpayers and \u201clearn from critiques that are legitimate.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s time to renew that compact while also recognizing the ecosystem needs to evolve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Caltech needs only to look up to see reasons for optimism now and into the future. NASA\u2019s Roman Space Telescope, carrying a JPL-built instrument, launched in August. In September, NASA advanced PRIMA, a $1.2-billion far-infrared telescope built around Caltech and JPL detectors, toward a 2033 launch.<\/p>\n
He called Caltech \u2014 which enrolls fewer than 2,400 students and admitted under 4% of applicants this year, about as selective as Harvard \u2014 \u201creally small but truly mighty.\u201d Since Jayawardhana took office July 1, donors have committed about $73 million in gifts.<\/p>\n
Jayawardhana built his inaugural address around the notion of \u201cfirst light,\u201d which astronomers call the moment a new telescope first opens to the night sky. He described Caltech\u2019s \u201cuncommon ethos,\u201d one that \u201cbets on bold ideas,\u201d and \u201cthe exhilarating bequest entrusted to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe take it up at a time of breathtaking scientific possibility, but also fraying public trust and mounting pressure to measure the value of inquiry by the immediacy of its returns,\u201d he said. \u201cAs scientists, we must remain optimists in the face of uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n
JPL up for bid<\/p>\n
Nowhere is the uncertainty sharper than at JPL.<\/p>\n
NASA has given Caltech the contract without competition since the agency\u2019s founding in 1958. In May, NASA said opening it up would \u201censure continued accountability and strong value for U.S. taxpayers.\u201d NASA plans to pick a winner in early 2028 that will take over after Caltech\u2019s current contract, which is valued at up to $30 billion over 10 years.<\/p>\n
JPL has eliminated more than 1,500 jobs for employees and contractors since early 2024, roughly a quarter of its workforce, under the Biden and Trump administrations. Reductions included work on the now-canceled Mars Sample Return mission. NASA\u2019s reimbursements to Caltech for the cost of running JPL fell about 12% to $2.3 billion in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2025. NASA also paid Caltech $58.4 million in 2025 for managing the lab.<\/p>\n
Jayawardhana said it makes sense for NASA to evaluate \u201cwhat\u2019s working well\u201d in how the lab is run. Caltech welcomes \u201cthe chance to demonstrate\u201d what he called \u201cthe continuing unparalleled value of the partnership.\u201d He said sustaining the JPL partnership is a \u201chigh priority.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caltech is also remaking how the lab does business. Under an arrangement set up in the last year, private companies and nonprofits can fund work at JPL directly. Jayawardhana said that has brought $50 million worth of work to JPL in about nine months.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Caltech named Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman an associate vice president and JPL\u2019s deputy director, starting Nov. 30. It also announced a $27.5-million gift from Foster and Coco Stanback for aerospace research at Caltech and JPL.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1793318169_871_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
A technician works on a component of the Near-Earth Object Surveyor, a space telescope designed to find asteroids and comets that could threaten Earth, at JPL on March 19, 2025. It is set to launch no earlier than September 2027.<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
JPL is the largest piece of Caltech\u2019s dependence on Washington. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s fully replaceable,\u201d Jayawardhana said of federal funding, calling corporate and philanthropic money \u201ccomplementary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Caltech\u2019s federal research funding rose about 13% to $370.6 million in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2025, and grew to $381.4 million in the last fiscal year.<\/p>\n
But the strain shows elsewhere. In a July 2025 memo, then-President Thomas F. Rosenbaum warned that federal money, \u201croughly one-third\u201d of the campus budget, could no longer be counted on, and that Caltech was \u201cprepared to implement a substantial reduction in graduate admissions for fall 2026.\u201d This fall, 213 new graduate students and postdoctoral scholars came to campus, down from 287 a year earlier.<\/p>\n
Visas and a subpoena<\/p>\n
Nearly half of Caltech\u2019s graduate students, 46%, come from abroad, along with 16% of undergraduates.<\/p>\n
Since President Trump took office, his administration has expanded a travel ban to 39 countries and turned scrutiny on the J-1, a State Department exchange visa that universities use to bring in visiting researchers and professors. On Oct. 8, Vice President JD Vance and the Labor Department\u2019s inspector general announced an investigation into potential fraud in the J-1 program, alleging that universities \u2014 including Caltech \u2014 use the visas to bring in foreign researchers and students at Americans\u2019 expense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t specifically comment on it,\u201d Jayawardhana said of the allegations. Caltech \u201chas received an administrative subpoena,\u201d he said. \u201cOur lawyers are reviewing it.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1793318170_984_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Caltech staff members greet then-incoming Caltech President Ray Jayawardhana during an announcement event for his hiring in January.<\/p>\n
(Christina House \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Navigating AI, free speech and diversity<\/p>\n
Tensions over AI surfaced on campus this fall when nearly 800 current and former Caltech mathematicians protested a student-run \u201cMathathon\u201d backed by about $2 million in computing credits from OpenAI and Anthropic, warning of \u201cslop mathematics.\u201d OpenAI later pulled out.<\/p>\n
Math is \u201cchanging certainly quite dramatically\u201d because of AI, Jayawardhana said, calling it \u201ca precursor to what\u2019s coming to other fields.\u201d As \u201cmore and more of that scientific process is handled by AI,\u201d he said, what human scientists contribute \u201cis going to change.\u201d<\/p>\n
As provost at Johns Hopkins, Jayawardhana co-signed a 2024 statement committing the university to restraint in taking public positions on social and political issues, a practice often called institutional neutrality. He said the practice should apply at Caltech too.<\/p>\n
\u201cHearing or allowing for ideas to be heard is not the same as endorsing those ideas,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The Trump administration has also pressed universities to end diversity programs. Last year, Caltech retitled its chief diversity officer as an associate vice president for \u201ccampus climate, engagement and success.\u201d The change, which was not publicly explained, came weeks after the Education Department warned colleges that diversity, equity and inclusion programs could cost them funding.<\/p>\n
Jayawardhana said Caltech is \u201cbased on merit,\u201d aims to keep \u201cdoors wide open and wants to recruit from a full cross section of society.\u201d<\/p>\n
From childhood curiosity to a search for alien life<\/p>\n
Jayawardhana traces his interest in space to when he was 4, walking in the family garden as his late father, Somapala, pointed to the moon and told him people had walked on its surface. Jayawardhana said that instilled an early belief that \u201cif people could do that, what could they not do?\u201d<\/p>\n
After studying at Yale and Harvard and holding posts at UC Berkeley, University of Michigan, University of Toronto, York University and Cornell, he joined Johns Hopkins in 2023. Keeping with Caltech tradition, Jayawardhana still does research of his own, studying planets around other stars.<\/p>\n
Jayawardhana has written for years about the search for life beyond Earth and is the author of four books. He made alien life the centerpiece of a talk to alumni on campus this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe universe is a big, big, big place, and it would be presumptuous, to say the least, to imagine that life originated only on one little rock around one rather ordinary star,\u201d he told the alumni. He said that if repeated signs of life are found outside Earth, \u201cI do think it could be a moment in the history of humankind comparable to Darwin or Galileo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do this for a living,\u201d he said of astronomy and science, \u201cand yet I find it mind-boggling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a teen in Sri Lanka, Ray Jayawardhana wrote to NASA\u2019s Jet Propulsion Laboratory asking about its Voyager…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[310727,53789,11840,179986,24922,107722,718,376828,376829,5496,79,2384,644,6671,15186,2394],"class_list":["post-899299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-alien-life","tag-caltech","tag-campus","tag-fiscal-year","tag-institute","tag-jpl","tag-nasa","tag-ray-jayawardhana","tag-research-university","tag-researcher","tag-science","tag-time","tag-trump-administration","tag-university","tag-work","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}