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Annually, the Institute bestows its premier accolade for alumni—the Distinguished Alumni Award—upon individuals who, due to both personal dedication and professional impact, have made significant contributions to a field, the community, or society at large.
The 2025 cohort of DAAs—initially revealed this year at Caltech’s 88th Annual Seminar Day on May 17—includes Deborah D.L. Chung (BS ’73, MS ’73), Athanassios Fokas (PhD ’79), F. William Studier (PhD ’63), and Donald Truhlar (PhD ’70).
“The Distinguished Award honorees have utilized their Caltech education to uncover the enigmas of nature and to apply their discoveries for the benefit of society,” states Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum, the Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and professor of physics. “The interests of the 2025 cohort span various disciplines, exemplifying Caltech’s methodology in research and the exceptional potential harnessed when fundamental discovery aligns with a clear vision for the future.”
Deborah D.L. Chung (BS ’73, MS ’73), the SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University at Buffalo, is celebrated for her research that initiated the field of multifunctional structural materials; for her involvement in developing smart concrete and other nanostructured materials with inherent abilities that may benefit society; and for her unwavering commitment to diversifying science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Chung is a globally acknowledged materials scientist, regarded as a leader in a subfield known as multifunctional structural materials, catalyzed by her invention of self-sensing smart concrete. She has engineered nanostructured materials that protect against electromagnetic interference, thermal interface materials for microelectronic cooling, and structural materials capable of functioning as electrical capacitors.
She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been honored with the University at Buffalo President’s Medal, the highest distinction of that institution.
Chung is also recognized for her initiatives to broaden participation in STEM through her personal contributions, outreach, and philanthropy, and was among the first group of women to earn undergraduate degrees from Caltech in 1973.
Athanassios Fokas (PhD ’79), Emeritus Professor of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at the University of Cambridge, is recognized for his contributions encompassing science, medicine, and the arts, including advancements in partial differential equations, mathematical physics, life sciences, and nuclear imaging for diagnosis and discovery, as well as his dedicated efforts to explain and invigorate science and mathematics for the public.
Fokas’s contributions span a variety of fields. Among the most referenced mathematicians, he collaborated with peers to resolve vital open problems in the algebraic analysis of integrable nonlinear partial differential equations; developed a transformation method named after him that is utilized in mathematical physics; and enhanced asymptotic methods, some of which apply to issues in general relativity. His algorithms have improved nuclear imaging for diagnosis and have been instrumental in providing comprehensive descriptions of brain currents. His broader contributions to biomedical science include models addressing leukemia dynamics, protein folding, and COVID-19 wave dynamics.
Fokas, an enthusiastic science communicator whose lectures have drawn thousands, is a member of Greece’s Academy of Athens and a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Mathematical Society. He has been awarded the London Mathematical Society’s Naylor Prize, the European Academy of Science’s Blaise Pascal Medal, and membership in Greece’s Order of the Phoenix.
F. William Studier (PhD ’63), the former group leader for Molecular and Structural Biology at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is acknowledged for his inventions that have contributed to extending millions of lives through therapies, diagnostics, and vaccines; for his foundational work investigating the genetics and biochemistry of bacteriophage T7; and for his innovative techniques in high-throughput analysis of DNA, RNA, and T7 proteins.
The technologies Studier has pioneered in molecular biology have played a crucial role in extending lives across the globe through their use in therapies, diagnostics, and vaccines, including the mRNA vaccines for COVID-19. His pioneering work on the genetics and biochemistry of bacteriophage T7 laid the groundwork for systems biology. Building on that knowledge, he devised a method for the rapid expression of any gene of interest—one of the most frequently employed systems in biomedical research. He also created methods for high-throughput slab gel electrophoresis that became central to the assessment of DNA, RNA, and T7 proteins.
Studier has received the Department of Energy’s Ernest Orlando Lawrence Memorial Award and the Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology, and he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, in addition to being a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Donald Truhlar (PhD ’70), Regents Professor and Distinguished University Teaching Professor at the University of Minnesota, is honored for his pioneering achievements in theoretical and computational chemistry research, earning him recognition as one of the world’s preeminent chemists and establishing the foundation for the first precise measurements of, or models for, numerous significant chemical interactions.
Truhlar executed the first precise quantum mechanical calculation of a chemical reaction rate, developed methods that have become standard in the calculations of rate constants in chemical kinetics; innovated accurate methodologies for density functional theory widely adopted in chemistry and chemical physics; and identified the most frequently utilized chemical models for free energies of solvation. His diverse research endeavors aim to tackle global challenges related to energy and the environment while advancing the tenets of quantum mechanics.
Truhlar has been honored with multiple accolades, including election as a fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Society of Chemistry, the American Chemical Society, and the American Physical Society.
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