Caltech is a world-renowned science and engineering Institute that marshals some of the world's brightest minds and most innovative tools to address fundamental scientific questions and pressing societal challenges. Caltech's extraordinary faculty and students are expanding our understanding of the universe and inventing the technologies of the future, with research interests from quantum science and engineering to bioinformatics and the nature of life itself, from human behavior and economics to energy and sustainability.
 
Caltech is small but prizes excellence and ambition. The contributions of Caltech's faculty and alumni have earned national and international recognition, including 39 Nobel Prizes. The Institute manages the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for NASA, sending probes to explore the planets of our solar system and quantify changes on our home planet; owns and operates large-scale research facilities such as the Seismological Laboratory and a global network of astronomical observatories, including the Palomar and W. M. Keck Observatories; and cofounded and comanages LIGO, which, in 2016, observed gravitational waves for the first time.
 
The Institute has one of the nation's lowest student-to-faculty ratios, with 300 professorial faculty members offering a rigorous curriculum and access to varied learning opportunities and hands-on research to approximately 1,000 undergraduates and 1,250 graduate students. Caltech is an independent, privately supported institution with a 124-acre campus located in Pasadena, California.
 
Scientists, engineers, and — above all — innovative thinkers, Caltech scholars thrive in an environment of intellectual creativity and freedom. CalTech's faculty, alumni, and trustees have been recognized with top national and international honors and the world's most prestigious prizes for their bold scientific explorations and inspired collaborations.
 
38 Nobel Laureates (39 prizes)
7 Crafoord Laureates
8 Kavli Prize Recipients
58 National Medal of Science Recipients
13 National Medal of Technology and Innovation Recipients
73 National Academy of Sciences Members
9 National Academy of Medicine Members
48 National Academy of Engineering Members
106 American Academy of Arts and Sciences Faculty Fellows