The Power of Philantropy

A $25 million gift to endow the Center for Sensing to Intelligence will enable S2I faculty to focus postdoctoral scholars and graduate students on the most promising new initiatives now and far into the future. The center endowment will be apportioned into three equal parts to fuel advances in human health, scientific discovery, and sustainability.

A $5 million endowed discovery fund for each of the three research initiatives—human health, scientific discovery, and sustainability—will provide resources to seed-fund early-stage investigations that have the potential for significant impact. Such discretionary endowments make research dollars go further by enabling scholars to take smart risks on their most promising ideas. They free Caltech leadership from using the operating budget to support emerging research. And the knowledge of these funds inspires and emboldens scientists and engineers to dream bigger and delve deeper.

Expendable S2I discovery funds will seed early-stage research by enabling faculty to act immediately on bold ideas, without the need to wait through federal grant cycles.

Additionally, while the S2I center endowment is being built, your gift to support S2I discovery funds can go even further: Alumnus George Kadifa (MS '82) and his wife, Sally Kadifa, will match up to $250,000 in contributions one-to-one to help faculty develop and test promising ideas that have never been tried before.

S2I faculty push the frontiers of computation and sensor technology to create a healthier, more connected, and more resilient world. You can support these pioneering investigators by directing your gift to an individual faculty member or to a group focused on a specific research area. Or you can give to S2I faculty research overall, allowing center leadership to invest the funds where they will have the greatest impact.

Postdoctoral fellowships give outstanding early-career PhDs incomparable opportunities to engage in transformative research and will help Caltech recruit an outstanding and diverse cohort of postdoctoral scholars to drive progress in S2I.

Caltech's ability to spur discovery in S2I and every field depends upon recruiting the most promising and creative graduate students. Fellowships give these aspiring scholars freedom to pursue their passions and focus on their research, teaching, and futures instead of their funding.

Your gift to support undergraduates enables talented and highly motivated students to participate directly in S2I-related research under the guidance of faculty mentors who are leaders in the field.