Dr. Ray Jayawardhana, an accomplished academic leader and renowned astrophysicist who currently serves as provost of Johns Hopkins University, has been named Caltech’s next President, the tenth in the Institute’s 105-year history.
Jayawardhana’s appointment by Caltech’s Board of Trustees, announced today at a community-wide gathering on the Institute’s Pasadena campus, was the result of a months-long international search.
‘Ray is a leader of exceptional distinction who brings a complement of qualities-as a pioneering astrophysics researcher, respected university administrator, and compelling science communicator-that together will ensure Caltech builds on its legacy of transformational research and exploration to benefit humanity,’ says Caltech Board of Trustee Chair David W. Thompson (MS ’78). ‘The Board’s unanimous decision reflects our confidence in Ray’s ability to chart Caltech’s future-advancing our mission, inspiring our community, and elevating the Institute’s global impact.’
Jayawardhana will assume his new position on July 1, 2026.
‘I am deeply honored to have been selected as Caltech’s tenth president and to join this remarkable community of trailblazers,’ says Jayawardhana. ‘For more than a century, Caltech has achieved extraordinary and enduring impact from a deceptively simple formula: empowering brilliant minds to explore important questions with imagination and courage and making bold commitments to efforts others might consider too risky or far-fetched.’
‘My commitment is to stay true to Caltech’s North Star of fundamental research and exploration integrated deeply with education, while strengthening this community’s ability to pursue, share, and apply knowledge and innovations that serve and inspire humanity.’
At Caltech, Jayawardhana says he will partner with faculty and other stakeholders to advance bold, catalytic investments in innovative ventures on campus, at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and across the Institute’s suite of global observatories; enrich the experience of undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows; and expand the Institute’s engagement with the public.
At Johns Hopkins, Jayawardhana oversees the university’s 10 schools as well as an expansive portfolio of interdisciplinary programs, academic centers, and core administrative and operational units. He partners closely with the president, deans, faculty, students, and staff to advance the university’s research, education, and outreach missions, and has been instrumental in launching and shaping major initiatives, most notably the Data Science and AI Institute and the School of Government and Policy, as well as elevating the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences through the expansion of select departments.
As a scientist, Jayawardhana investigates the diversity, origins, and evolution of planets and planetary systems, as well as the formation of stars and brown dwarfs. Using the largest telescopes on the ground (including the W. M. Keck Observatory, which Caltech co-manages with the University of California) and in space (especially the James Webb Space Telescope), he and his collaborators characterize planets around other stars, or exoplanets, with an eye toward assessing the prospects for life beyond Earth. He is a core science team member for the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRISS instrument, and his research group has led Gemini Observatory large programs on high-resolution spectroscopy of exoplanetary atmospheres.
He has co-authored 180 refereed papers in scientific journals, with over 10,000 total citations.
Jayawardhana’s interest in public engagement with science is deeply personal, stemming from a sense of wonder and curiosity about the universe that first sparked his imagination in childhood in Sri Lanka.
‘Some of my earliest memories are of walking around with my father at night, looking up at the sky,’ Jayawardhana recounts. ‘It was in those moments that my lifelong fascination with space took root, and with it my deep belief in human curiosity and audacity to reach for what once seemed beyond our grasp. That sense of awe and teeming possibility has guided me ever since.’
Jayawardhana is an acclaimed writer and science communicator who has published widely in leading outlets, with articles in The Economist, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. His popular science book Strange New Worlds was the basis for The Planet Hunters television documentary on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. His book Neutrino Hunters won the Canadian Science Writers Association’s Book Award. Jayawardhana’s picture book for children, Child of the Universe, published by Penguin Random House, is meant to spark the same fascination with the universe that inspired him as a child. He has also delivered dozens of public lectures and made hundreds of media appearances over the years.
Among Jayawardhana’s many awards and honors are a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship from Harvard, the Rutherford Medal in Physics from the Royal Society of Canada, the Nicholson Medal from the American Physical Society, and the Carl Sagan Medal from the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences. Asteroid 4668 Rayjay is named after him.