PASADENA >> California Institute of Technology inaugurated its ninth president Friday with a full day of festivities and a perk that left Thomas Rosenbaum nearly speechless.
“This is so cool,” the incoming president said as Surrogate, a robot reminiscent of Hollywood’s Short Circuit, presented him with an iPad mini featuring a red button. Rosenbaum listened to a countdown and then pushed the button, sending a command order to the Curiosity rover on Mars.
It took about 12 minutes for the rover to receive its reconnaissance order for the next three days.
Rosenbaum, 59, began his Caltech presidential duties July 1. He succeeded President Jean-Lou Chameau, who served Caltech from 2006 to 2013, and took over the helm from Interim President Edward Stolper.
Altogether more than 1,000 people attended the inauguration celebrations at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech. People of note include six Nobel laureates; NASA Administrator Charles Bolden; Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena; Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank; and Pasadena Mayor Bill Bogaard.
Rosenbaum outlined five aspects that will mark his leadership: commitment to excellence, ambition, focus, intimacy and perspective.
“The genius of Caltech is its fearlessness to try new ideas, its willingness to absorb risk and even fail if there is potential to transform and discover,” he said. “As the constraints become more pronounced, we will be challenged even more profoundly to define areas where the institute could be a world leader and where it cannot. We will have to forge partnerships with sovereign countries to build a 30-meter telescope, with medical centers to translate our research into clinical applications while protecting our capacity to set the intellectual agenda.”
Fiona Harrison, chairwoman of Caltech’s Presidential Search Committee, said the private institution found a leader who would “undertake ambitious, transformative challenges.”
“We knew we wanted a distinguished scholar whom the faculty could recognize as an academic leader, and in Tom Rosenbaum, we found an eminent physicist who has done fundamental and pioneering research,” she said. “We knew we wanted a leader of intellectual breath, so imagine our pleasure in learning that Tom Rosenbaum once spent time auditing humanities courses during a year sabbatical at the University of Chicago. In interviews, he articulated ideas and visions extending well beyond science and engineering.”
Caltech is a renown and selective university with about 2,200 students. Its faculty and alumni have been awarded 33 Nobel Prizes and six Crafoord Prizes.
Aside from serving as provost of the University of Chicago for seven years, Rosenbaum also worked with Argonne National Laboratory as the university’s vice president for research from 2002 to 2006.
The former John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor earned a bachelor’s in physics from Harvard University and a doctorate in the same field from Princeton University.
Charles Bolden, a NASA administrator, said Rosenbaum’s decision to start his inauguration ceremony at JPL speaks to the importance he places on JPL and NASA.
“There’s no doubt that JPL and Caltech are vital to helping NASA create an exciting future,” Bolden said. “Dr. Rosenbaum, we look forward to working with you in the years ahead and having you with us on the journey to Mars.”
