The California Institute of Technology, one of the most selective research universities in the nation, named Ray Jaywardhana, an astrophysicist, as its new president on Tuesday.
The appointment comes as American science is under threat and much of the public has lost confidence in higher education. Caltech leaders chose Dr. Jaywardhana, the 54-year-old provost of Johns Hopkins University, in part because of his experience in communicating with the public.
The Trump administration has argued that universities have become beholden to “woke” politics, and has sought to tighten the purse strings of federal grants to force universities to adopt his preferred political changes.
Many university leaders worry the political winds have shifted against them partly because they have struggled to explain why the research emerging from their labs matters for the rest of the country.
Beyond attacks from the Trump administration, members of the search committee worried about a reduced societal commitment to science. “A president who’s able to communicate is going to be important,” said Jonas Zmuidzinas, a physics professor and chair of the search committee, “and that’s one of the reasons why Ray stood out.”
As provost, Dr. Jayawardhana is the top academic officer of Johns Hopkins University, another research powerhouse. He is a prolific author of scientific papers, but he has also written several science books, including one for children, and made frequent media appearances. At Johns Hopkins, he started a fellowship program to help professors communicate their science.
“I’ve felt strongly for a long time about the need, the imperative, frankly, for research institutions, for researchers, to engage with the broadest possible set of audiences,” Dr. Jayawardhana said in an interview.
He added, “And communication really does need to be not unidirectional. So we need to hear what the public has to say.”
Caltech, a research-focused institution in Pasadena, just north of Los Angeles, has not been targeted by the Trump administration the way many of its elite peers have. The school does not have the types of programs that have animated conservative critics of colleges, like gender studies or Middle Eastern studies.
But many departments at Caltech have pulled back on offers to postdoctoral researchers and new graduate students because of uncertainties around funding. Frances Arnold, a Nobel laureate who served on the search committee, estimated the school cut back 30 to 50 percent on offers to new graduate students, which she said will lead to a “lost generation” of scientists.
Caltech’s large science budget, $371 million in federally sponsored research last year, has made the institution vulnerable as the Trump administration has used the levers of research funding to punish universities. Trump officials have floated the idea of major funding cuts to research budgets, including a 40 percent reduction for the National Institutes of Health.
Some science advocates are optimistic that the courts and public opinion have helped beat back some of the Trump administration’s biggest proposals. A plan to dramatically reduce the amount that research universities receive for overhead expenses was stopped by the courts. And lawmakers, including Republicans, have pushed back against other cuts.
Even so, science depends on stability. A New York Times analysis found that science funding under President Trump has become more erratic, with fewer grants being funded and a reduced investment in young scholars. Scientists also worry about the chilling effect on international students who no longer view the United States as welcoming, after the Trump administration revoked visas and arrested some students over pro-Palestinian speech.
Some universities have turned to the business or political worlds for their executive leaders, but Caltech, which manages the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA, needed a scientist or engineer. “That was a nonnegotiable,” Dr. Zmuidzinas said.
Dr. Jayawardhana’s own pathway from Sri Lanka to the helm of a major American university represents how welcoming American universities have historically been to immigrants. The astrophysicist’s love of science began in his childhood garden, in south Sri Lanka, when his father pointed at the moon and said men had been there.
“The idea that you could walk on the moon, in the sky, just sort of blew up the sense of possibility for me,” he said. The moment helped inspire at least one of his public-facing books, “Child of the Universe,” an illustrated children’s book.
Dr. Jayawardhana, who starts in July, will take over from Thomas F. Rosenbaum, a physicist who led the school for 12 years. Dr. Jayawardhana served as dean of Cornell University’s College of Arts and Sciences before becoming provost at Johns Hopkins in 2023. He earned his bachelor’s in physics and astronomy from Yale and a doctorate in astronomy from Harvard.
When asked whether he believes the United States remains welcoming and attractive to international students, Dr. Jayawardhana responded carefully and politically.
“Part of the success story of America’s universities has to do with their ability to attract, train and support the brightest and most enterprising students and scholars from around the world,” he said, adding, “We should do all we can to preserve those opportunities and pathways.”
Vimal Patel writes about higher education for The Times with a focus on speech and campus culture.
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