News

10/12/2009 For the second year in a row, Caltech received a B on the Sustainability Report Card. Caltech was awarded an A in the categories of Climate Change and Energy, Food and Recycling, and Investment Priorities. Click here to view the complete report card.

09/22/2009 Caltech alum David MacKay, PhD '92, has been appointed chief scientific advisor for the United Kingdom's Department of Energy and Climate Change. MacKay is currently a professor of natural philosophy in the physics department at Cambridge University and is author of the influential book Sustainable Energy—Without the Hot Air.

He is internationally known for his research in machine learning, information theory, and communication systems, including the invention of Dasher, a software application for communication that is especially popular with disabled people. He has taught physics in Cambridge since 1995. Over the years MacKay has devoted an increasing amount of time to public teaching about energy.

06/02/2009 In a talk called "Energy and Climate Policy: The Decade Ahead," John Bryson discussed how California's distinctive approach to clean energy systems may help guide the United States and other countries in their efforts to lower carbon emissions. Bryson is a commissioner of the National Commission on Energy Policy and the former chairman, CEO, and president of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison.

03/25/2009 The next Earnest C. Watson Lecture will take place at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, April 1, in Beckman Auditorium. In a talk called "Exploring the Deep Sea for Corals and Clues to Our Climatic Past," Caltech's Jess Adkins, associate professor of geochemistry and global environmental science, will explain how submarines, robots, lowered cameras, and dredges are used to find deep sea corals. These archives of past climate are related to their surface cousins and can structure huge thriving communities hundreds to thousands of meters below the surface.

03/04/2009 Benjamin Santer, an atmospheric scientist with the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison (PCMDI) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, presented a talk on human-caused climate change. His research focuses on identification of natural and anthropogenic "fingerprints" in observed climate records, the use of statistical methods in climate science, and climate model evaluation.