Johns Hopkins University Provost Ray Jayawardhana, who has guided the college’s expansive tutorial and analysis portfolio throughout a crucial interval in greater training, has been appointed the next president of the California Institute of Technology. Jayawardhana will assume his position at Caltech efficient July 1.
JHU President Ron Daniels introduced the appointment in a message to college, employees, and college students Tuesday, expressing appreciation for Jayawardhana’s management and contributions to the college’s tutorial mission.
Image caption: Ray Jayawardhana
“During his tenure at Johns Hopkins, Ray partnered with me and colleagues across the university in navigating a shifting landscape in higher education while advancing our shared aspirations for the university,” Daniels wrote. “While we will miss Ray’s leadership and service to Johns Hopkins, we are excited for him and for the Caltech community he will soon lead.”
Jayawardhana succeeds Thomas F. Rosenbaum, Caltech’s ninth president who has served in the position since 2014.
“Ray is a leader of exceptional distinction who brings a complement of qualities—as a pioneering astrophysics researcher, respected university administrator, and compelling science communicator—that together will ensure Caltech builds on its legacy of transformational research and exploration to benefit humanity,” mentioned David W. Thompson, chair of Caltech’s board of trustees. “The board’s unanimous decision reflects our confidence in Ray’s ability to chart Caltech’s future—advancing our mission, inspiring our community, and elevating the Institute’s global impact.”
A distinguished scientist and devoted tutorial chief, Jayawardhana came to Johns Hopkins in October 2023 from Cornell University, the place he served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Hans A. Bethe Professor, and professor of astronomy. Prior to his time at Cornell, he was dean of the Faculty of Science at York University in Toronto, following 10 years on the college at the University of Toronto, the place he held a Canada Research Chair.
Throughout his time as provost, Jayawardhana remained an lively scientist, persevering with his analysis on exoplanets and the origins of stars, planets, and brown dwarfs, and serving as a science workforce member for the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) instrument.
At Johns Hopkins, Jayawardhana partnered with colleagues in college management and throughout the establishment to bolster and maintain JHU’s analysis efforts, together with by way of the improvement of the Pivot and Bridge Grants for faculty facing funding gaps, the PhD Thesis and Postdoctoral Research Completion Grants, and elevated Summer Provost’s Undergraduate Research Awards. He additionally collaborated with the Johns Hopkins University Council on a spread of well timed issues and labored with deans and college in the new School of Government and Policy, the School of Education, the Whiting School of Engineering, and the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences to ascertain or strengthen tutorial appointment and promotion procedures.
In addition, below Jayawardhana’s management, the provost’s workplace took steps to harmonize analysis administration throughout the college and drugs, superior shared analysis services planning, and partnered with leaders in Johns Hopkins IT to strengthen universitywide information use and entry and to increase AI instruments, together with the development of HopGPT.
As chair or co-chair of a number of main management searches, Jayawardhana stewarded the appointments of the deans of the School of Medicine, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the inaugural dean of the School of Government and Policy. He additionally superior key priorities of the university’s Ten for One strategic framework, notably the Data Science and AI Institute, working intently with colleagues to appoint the inaugural director, increase the college’s high-performance computing capability, and recruit main college, together with inside the DSAI-aligned analysis clusters of the Bloomberg Distinguished Professorships program.
Daniels additionally highlighted Jayawardhana’s position in increasing Hopkins’ public engagement and artistic attain.
“Through two imaginative initiatives, the Provost’s Fellows for Public Engagement and the Taskforce on the Arts, Ray opened new avenues to connect Hopkins’ scholarship and creativity with the world, extending the university’s commitment to discovery in service of society,” he wrote.
Details on interim management in the Office of the Provost can be shared in the close to future, Daniels added.
“It has been a profound privilege to serve Johns Hopkins as provost,” Jayawardhana mentioned. “I am grateful to President Daniels for his trust and partnership, and to the extraordinary community of faculty, staff, students, and researchers whose spirit of curiosity, creativity, and ambition fuels the university’s momentum and impact. I will remain a proud and enthusiastic champion of Johns Hopkins’ mission, so deeply grounded in public purpose and in discovery for the benefit of humanity.”