Convocation 2025

Caltech's annual convocation ceremony will take place on Friday, September 26, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. in Beckman Auditorium. Convocation marks the Institute's formal and official welcome to all incoming undergraduate and graduate students.

We invite all members of the Caltech community—new and returning students, staff, faculty, and postdocs—to come together to celebrate the beginning of the academic year and to help welcome our new students. The event will begin at 9:00 a.m. with all new students processing into Beckman Auditorium from the south end of Beckman Mall. Current faculty, staff, students, and postdocs are encouraged to arrive by 8:45 a.m. to take their seats in the auditorium and be part of the warm welcome for the incoming students as they enter the space.

This year's program, hosted by Vice President and Faculty Dean of Students Kevin M. Gilmartin, will feature a welcome from President Thomas F. Rosenbaum and a faculty panel discussion on artificial intelligence chaired by Frederick Eberhardt, Professor of Philosophy. Panelists include Katie Bouman, Associate Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences; Georgia Gkioxari, Assistant Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences; and Steve Chien, Senior Research Scientist at JPL. The discussion will introduce students to advances in AI research at Caltech, highlight how AI is used across disciplines, and offer guidance on its ethical use in academics and research.

A community brunch will follow immediately after the event on Beckman Mall.

Advancing Intelligence: Science, Ethics, and Exploration in the Age of AI

Featured Speakers:
Dr. Frederick Eberhardt
Professor of Philosophy, Computing and Mathematical Sciences; Co-Director of the Linde Center for Science, Society, and Policy

Frederick Eberhardt's research primarily focuses on methods for causation and how we might learn about causal relations from data. His research projects generally fall in an area of overlap between philosophy, machine learning, statistics, and cognitive science. Before joining Caltech in 2013, he taught at Washington University in St. Louis and held a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley. He earned his Ph.D. in Logic, Computation, and Methodology from Carnegie Mellon University. Together with Dr. Michael Alvarez he directs Caltech's Linde Center for Science, Society, and Policy.

Dr. Katie Bouman
Associate Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Electrical Engineering and Astronomy; Rosenberg Scholar; Investigator, Heritage Medical Research Institute

Dr. Bouman's research centers on computational imaging, developing systems that integrate algorithms and sensor design to capture phenomena beyond the reach of traditional methods. Her group combines approaches from signal processing, computer vision, machine learning, and physics to extract hidden signals for scientific discovery and technological innovation. In collaboration with the Event Horizon Telescope, Dr. Bouman helped produce the first image of a black hole and continues to analyze its data to probe general relativity in extreme conditions.

Dr. Georgia Gkioxari
Assistant Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Electrical Engineering; William H. Hurt Scholar

Dr. Georgia Gkioxari is an Assistant Professor of Computing and Mathematical Sciences and Electrical Engineering at Caltech and a William H. Hurt Scholar. She studies advanced visual perception models that extend the boundaries of computer vision, developing methods for 2D and 3D scene understanding. Prior to joining Caltech, she was a research scientist at Meta AI's FAIR team, and she continues to collaborate with the FAIR Perception group. Dr. Gkioxari has received the PAMI Young Researcher Award, the Okawa Research Award, the Google Faculty Award, and the Amazon Research Award, and she was recognized among the 30 influential women advancing AI.

Dr. Steve Chien
Senior Research Scientist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Dr. Steve Chien is a JPL Fellow and Senior Research Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he leads the Artificial Intelligence Group in the Mission Planning and Execution Section. His research focuses on spacecraft autonomy, automated planning, and scheduling for space exploration. Dr. Chien has led AI systems deployed on numerous NASA missions, including Earth Observing-1 and ESA's Rosetta mission, earning multiple NASA Exceptional Achievement and Software of the Year awards. In addition to his work at JPL, he has served on the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, and currently the Army Science Board.