People

Website

Adam Wierman's research strives to make the networked systems that govern our world sustainable and resilient. His lab develops new mathematical tools in machine learning, optimization, control, and economics and applies these tools to design new algorithms and markets with provable guarantees that can be deployed in data centers, the electricity grid, transportation systems, and beyond.

Website

Professor Umans is interested in theoretical computer science, and especially computational complexity. He enjoys problems with an algebraic flavor, and this often leads to research questions in derandomization and explicit combinatorial constructions, algebraic algorithms, coding theory, and hardness of approximation.

Jim Peterson works as a chief engineer for Yellowbrick Data, a recent startup providing hybrid cloud data warehouses. Prior to joining Yellowbrick, Peterson worked as an architect for Fusion-io which was acquired by SanDisk. Prior to joining Fusion-io, Peterson worked at Catalytic / Agility Design Systems. He spent three years at Remedy as the VP and GM of the Core Product Unit, where he managed the combined platform and applications teams for new and enhanced Remedy products. With over 35 years of experience in the management of computer software and hardware development, his specialty for the last 10 years has included databases and flash storage. Previously, Peterson served as vice president of engineering operations at Liberate Technologies, a developer of internet-based middleware for enhanced interactive television. He also directed engineering efforts for various Adobe Systems products, including FrameMaker and PostScript. Mr. Peterson has a bachelor's degree in applied physics from Caltech, as well as a master's degree in engineering from UCLA.

Michael Amori is the CEO and Co-Founder of Virtualitics, an AI analytics company based on research done at Caltech. Prior to Virtualitics, Michael worked on Wall Street for 15 years, where he was the head of a quantitative trading desk. Michael has an M.S. in Applied Physics from Caltech, and an M.B.A. from Harvard.

Vineer Bhansali is Founder and Chief Investment Officer of LongTail Alpha, LLC, an investment management firm based in Newport Beach, CA which is focused exclusively on diversifying strategies.

His 30-year investment career started at Citibank, where he founded and managed the Hybrid Options Trading Desk. He later joined Salomon Brothers in its Fixed Income Arbitrage Group, followed by the CSFB Proprietary Trading Group. He was at PIMCO for 16 years, serving the last eight years as Managing Director and Head of the Quantitative Portfolios Team, which he founded in 2008. He has written five books on finance: Pricing and Managing Exotic and Hybrid Options; Fixed Income Finance: A Quantitative Approach; Bond Portfolio Investing and Risk Management; Tail Risk Hedging, and the most recent mono-graph published by the CFA Institute: The Incredible Upside Down Bond Market. He also authored over 30 refereed papers on option pricing, fixed income, tail hedging, and asset allocation in noted journals. He has received the Graham and Dodd Scroll Award from the FAJ and TIME magazine's college achievement award.

Dr. Bhansali received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Harvard University in 1992 and M.S. and B.S. degrees in Physics from Caltech in 1987. He is an ATP rated pilot with over four thousand hours in aircraft including jets and helicopters. He has run over fifty ultramarathons, including a silver buckle at the Western States 100-mile Endurance Run, and also the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc, Angeles Crest 100 and Leadville Trail 100. He currently serves on the Investment Committee of the Margaret A Cargill Philanthropies, is a Member of The Board of Directors of The Q Group and is a Trustee of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute.

Bill Coughran works as a founders' coach and partner at Sequoia Capital to help build spectacular technology-centric companies. Previously, Bill was Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google with oversight of Chrome, YouTube, Maps, Google.com, underlying infrastructure systems, and security.

Liying (Lily) Huang was in the first class to enter university after the Cultural Revolution in China. At age 20, her B.S. math thesis on a new statistical modeling regarding optimized computational efficiency was selected for publication in the China National Education Journal.

During her career in China, Liying established a computer training center to train and mentor young students and prepared them for the national programming competitions. She also built computerized financial and accounting systems for both government and business. She developed a computerized data system for weather forecasting with an optimized data model.

After emigrating to the US in the 1990s, Lily's first job was involved in a Java development Kit (JDK) project with Sun Micro for a short period of time. With the advent of personal computing and the internet, cybersecurity became an important field. Liying decided to join Trend Micro, a leading global cybersecurity company and she has devoted her career to cybersecurity since then. During her tenure with Trend Micro, Lily led the R&D team to develop the first antivirus software in the market for IBM's Lotus Notes and Domino which supports all platforms including IBM AS400 and IBM mainframe S390. She led the teams to develop an intelligent troubleshooting platform. Throughout her career, Lily and her teams have contributed significantly to the company's product quality and customer experiences. Lily has demonstrated her strong leadership and collaboration skills. She has been recognized by Trend Micro with the Most Valuable Player award three times and retired as Senior Director of core engineering at Trend Micro.

Liying currently manages a private investment LLC and has been an active member of the IST Council since 2012, regularly supporting IST initiatives.

While a student at Caltech, Mr. Jenkins was recruited by Trustee Gordon Moore to join Fairchild Semiconductor's R&D laboratory which Dr. Moore headed at the time. In 1968, Mr. Jenkins followed Dr. Gordon Moore, Dr. Andy Grove and Dr. Bob Noyce to Intel, becoming the company's employee #22.

Over the course of his career, Mr. Jenkins developed the process for Intel's first product, the 3101, a 64-bit SRAM with 35 nanosecond access time. He led Intel's wafer manufacturing and then the volatile memory division transitioning it to Flash memory. He finished his career as Vice President and Director of Corporate Licensing, and served as chairman of its Government Affairs Committee, an organization that coordinated public policy and advocacy across the corporation. Mr. Jenkins retired from Intel in 1999 after 30 years of service.

Mr. Jenkins was elected to Caltech's Board of Trustees in 2005 and became a Senior Trustee in 2015. He serves on the Buildings and Grounds Committee, the Development Committee, the Institute and Alumni Relations, the Student Experience, and the Technology Transfer Committees. He was the volunteer chair of the GPS Chair's Council from its founding in 2007 until January of 2021. Mr. Jenkins served on the Alumni Association board as secretary, treasurer, vice president and president, and is now past president. He is also president emeritus of the Caltech Associates.

Phil is currently in his sixth career. He evidently gets bored easily. After obtaining his B.S. in Environmental Science from Caltech, Phil joined an international consulting engineering firm lead by two Caltech alums, working as a Registered Civil Engineer focused on mathematical modeling of large civil and environmental systems. He next became the firm's CIO and led its 750 employees into the world of modern engineering computing. After bailing out of grad school without a degree, Phil left corporate life to become a consultant on high performance computer systems and databases, moonlighting as a technology writer covering computing trends. After ten years of consulting, Phil founded Gatekeeper Systems, a small software company that delivers a unique spatial data fusion application for large utility companies and municipalities. For the last 15 years, Phil has been the CTO for a large private hedge fund where he has fun applying his engineering background to build novel large computer clusters and industrial-scale datacenters. At Caltech, Phil was among that minority of techers who "had a great time". He has remained continuously involved with the Institute as a volunteer through the Caltech Y, the Gnomes, and most recently working with CMS and the Career Development Center on student mentoring. Phil is married (he met his wife at Tech) and has two grown sons, both of whom work in high-tech fields and teach Phil new things every day.

Peter Norton has been a computer software entrepreneur who is active in civic and philanthropic affairs. He serves on the boards of several scholastic and cultural institutions, including Caltech and the LACMA museum, and currently devotes most of his time to philanthropy. Mr. Norton made his mark in the computer industry as a programmer and businessman. Norton Utilities, Norton Antivirus, and other utility programs are widely installed on many computers worldwide. He is also the best-selling author of computer books. He sold his PC software business to Symantec Corporation, now Norton Lifelock, in 1990. He holds a B.A. in mathematics from UC Berkeley. He and his wife Gwen live in New York City and divide their summers between Martha's Vineyard and the Chautauqua Institution in western New York state.

Vivek Sharma helps boards and management teams grow their businesses through AI, data, and digital transformation.

Vivek is a Senior Advisor for AI at Advent International, a leading global PE firm with $90B AUM, and serves on the boards of Kaiser Permanente, JetBlue Airways (NASDAQ: JBLU), and Hexaware Solutions. He is an adjunct professor of data science at the University of Southern California and a member of Caltech's Innovation Science & Technology (IST) advisory council. An accomplished author, Vivek has written two books— "C-SPARK: CEO-led Workforce Education for the AGE of AND" and "WIREFRAMED: Simplifying Digital Innovation for Business Leaders"—as well as several HBR and NACD-Directorship articles, including "It's Time for Boards to Take AI Seriously," "6 Ways AI Could Disrupt Your Business" and "Shift Your Focus to Strategic AI Risks."

Previously, as CEO and co-founder of InStride, a Los Angeles-based EdTech company established in 2019, Vivek transformed the company into a profitable 200-person enterprise. Under his four years of leadership, InStride partnered with 41 major corporations, helping their employees avoid $630 million in student debt and earning a spot on Fortune's 'Global Impact 20' list. Before InStride, Vivek spent six years at The Walt Disney Company as Senior Vice President, Digital Guest Experience & eCommerce, leading a $10 billion eCommerce business and serving 150 million guests annually across Disney's global network of theme parks, resorts, cruises, restaurants and retail businesses. In earlier stints, Vivek served at Yahoo for four years as General Manager of Yahoo Mail & Messenger and Vice President of Yahoo Search, and at McKinsey & Company for eight years as Associate Partner of technology practice.

Vivek graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi, and holds an MBA from INSEAD, France.

Evangelos Simoudis is a recognized expert on new mobility, artificial intelligence and big data, and corporate innovation. He has been working in Silicon Valley for 30 years as a venture investor, senior advisor to global corporations and governments, entrepreneur, corporate executive, and technologist. He is co-founder and managing director of Synapse Partners, a firm that invests in early-stage startups developing enterprise software AI applications and advises global corporations on AI. Evangelos is the author of the books The Big Data Opportunity in Our Driverless Future and the recently published Transportation Transformation.

Evangelos is a member of Caltech's IST advisory board, the advisory board of Brandeis International School of Business, the advisory board of the U.S. Department of Transportation's Connected Cities for Smart Mobility Center, and the advisory board of Securing America's Future Energy. He has served on several commissions and task forces focusing on artificial intelligence, autonomous mobility, and corporate innovation. He earned a Ph.D. in computer science (machine learning) from Brandeis University and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Caltech.

Tom Tisch is retired from operating roles, venture capital and private investing. His experience spans technology start-ups to public companies engaged in communications, networking, computing and applications hardware and software. Funds that he helped manage made such first investments as 3Com & Software Publishing and Stac Electronics and later investments in Netrix Communications, Stratacom. He also was Vice President of eTrade in its early days with 25 people and 3% per week growth. Mr. Tisch began work as an engineer at Hewlett Packard and was on the small team that built HP's very first computer in the mid-1960s. He holds a B.S. from Caltech (1961), an M.S. in EE from Stanford ('62) and an M.B.A. also from Stanford.

Charlie Trimble is the founder and former CEO of Trimble Navigation, LTD. The company is a leading developer of commercial equipment utilizing the Global Positioning System (GPS). He led the company from a startup in 1978 through its initial public offering in 1990. Trimble Navigation was largely responsible for the commercialization of GPS technology, and at the time of Trimble's departure in 1998, the company was the dominant worldwide supplier of GPS equipment. He holds four patents in signal processing and several in Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. After leaving the company, he mentored startups and served on small company boards of directors.

Mr. Trimble is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the Council on Foreign Relations. He served on the NASA Advisory Council, the National Electronics Manufacturing Initiative, the Silicon Valley Defense/Space Consortium, and as chair of the United States Global Positioning System Industry Council. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year in 1991; the American Electronics Association Medal of Achievement in 2000; the NASA Public Service Medal in 2001 and 2004; and the Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award. Mr. Trimble earned his B.S. in engineering and applied science in 1963, and his M.S. in electrical engineering in 1964.

Mr. Trimble was elected to the Caltech Board of Trustees in June 2002 and became a Senior Trustee in August 2013. He is a member of the JPL, Student Experience, and Technology Transfer committees. In addition, he served as the chair of the governance subcommittee and is a former chair of the JPL committee. Mr. Trimble was the co-chair of the GPS Visiting Committee in 2017.

During the prior Caltech campaign, Mr. Trimble established a fund that he designated to support pre-peer reviewable research at Caltech. In the BreakThrough Campaign, he has supported several programs at Caltech, including Tapio Schneider's CLIMA project and the Caltech Center for Comparative Planetary Evolution.

Michael Walsh spent 33 years as a software engineer and serial entrepreneur. He is a co-founder of Quotient Technology (AKA Coupons.com). He is currently active in angel investing (several investments with ties to Caltech) and student mentoring, as well as some philanthropic efforts. He received a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Caltech in 1981 and a M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Northwestern in 1983.

Jerrell Watts is currently the Head of Algorithmic Trading at Point72, where he is responsible for a number of quantitative trading efforts across the firm's discretionary and systematic investing businesses. He was previously the Head of Algorithmic Execution and Order Routing at Citadel LLC. At Citadel, he served in quantitative research roles on both the asset management and broker-dealer (Citadel Securities) sides of the business. Prior to Citadel, he was a high frequency portfolio manager at Merrill Lynch. Before Merrill Lynch, he was the founder and head of the automated market making effort in equity options at Lehman Brothers, having previously worked on a similar project at Morgan Stanley. He began his career in finance as a quantitative developer at D. E. Shaw & Co. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the California Institute of Technology. He was born and grew up in Odessa, Texas.

Telle Whitney is a senior executive leader, an entrepreneur, a recognized advocate and expert on women and technology. She has over 20 years of leadership experience and was named one of Fast Company's Most Influential Women in Technology. She is a frequent speaker on the topic of Women and Technology. Telle has been called "a pioneer for the promotion of women technologists" and "one of the most inspirational leaders I have ever known."

Telle co-founded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference in 1994 and served as CEO of the non-profit Anita Borg Institute from 2002 to September 2017. She transformed the Institute into a recognized world leader for women and technology.

She has won numerous awards including the ACM distinguished service award, an honorary degree from CMU, and is an honorary member of IEEE. She serves on multiple for-profit and non-profit boards. She is also the co-founder of the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT).

Telle holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from the California Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Utah.