JPL in limbo, Trump hovering: Caltech's alien-life-seeking chief takes over at a volatile time

This is read by an automated voice.Please report any issues or inconsistencies here.

See more from the L.A.Times in Google Search.

Set us as preferred As a teen in Sri Lanka, Ray Jayawardhana wrote to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory asking about its Voyager and Viking missions.In response, he received a booklet with pictures of Jupiter and Saturn.

On Thursday, the astrophysicist who studies distant planets and writes about alien life will be installed as Caltech’s 10th president.He leads an institute behind many scientific feats: It gave birth to JPL 90 years ago, created the earthquake Richter scale and helped build the first detectors to observe cosmic gravitational waves.

Its alumni, faculty and postdocs have won 49 Nobel Prizes.In an interview with The Times, Jayawardhana, 55, the first astronomer and first South Asian American to lead Caltech, said the institute needs to “find clarity at a time of change and uncertainty” driven by artificial intelligence, shifting federal policy and global events.He takes over as Caltech faces its most consequential threat: NASA has opened JPL’s management contract to outsiders for the first time in its history, forcing the institute into a high-stakes competition.

Potentially dozens of institutions are in the mix, possibly including the University of California, Texas A&M and USC, whose representatives attended a briefing at JPL last week to learn about the opportunity to manage the laboratory.In addition, Caltech, Stanford and seven other campuses are under investigation by the Labor Department for potential fraud in their use of J-1 visas to bring in international scholars.Jayawardhana defended the decades-old partnership between higher education institutions and Washington, which pours billions of dollars into research universities.But he said universities must “accept responsibility” for delivering value to taxpayers and “learn from critiques that are legitimate.”“It’s time to rene...