Caltech Names and Celebrates Its 2026 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipients
The Caltech Distinguished Alumni Award (DAA) is the highest honor the Institute bestows upon a graduate. The DAAs are given in recognition of "a particular achievement, a series of such achievements, or a career of noteworthy accomplishment."
The members of the 2026 class of DAAs—first announced at Caltech's 89th Annual Seminar Day on May 16—join the 280 individuals who have been named since the award's inception in 1966. They are Leonidas Guibas (BS '71, MS '71), Eddy W. Hartenstein (MS '74), Shouleh Nikzad (MS '84, PhD '90), and David Van Essen (BS '67).
"The 2026 Distinguished Alumni Award recipients demonstrate the impressive achievements that are possible when visionary imagination is coupled with a Caltech education," says Caltech President Thomas F. Rosenbaum, the Sonja and William Davidow Presidential Chair and professor of physics. "By expanding the applications of new technology, drawing on expertise in multiple fields, and building community, this class traversed intellectual boundaries to amplify the impact of their work in service of society."
Leonidas Guibas (BS '71, MS '71)
Paul Pigott Professor of Engineering, Stanford University
Principal Scientist, Google DeepMind
For his pioneering achievements in computational geometry that have influenced an array of disciplines, including robotics, special effects, and computer vision; for his contributions to data structures, especially red-black trees; and for his foundational work in 3D deep learning.
Leonidas Guibas is a prominent figure in modern computer science whose influence spans disciplines including robotics, computer vision, and computational geometry, a field he helped found. With colleague Robert Sedgewick, Guibas refined red-black trees, a binary search tree that is one of the most popular data structures in computer science. His applications of geometric ideas to other subject areas have led to significant advancements in computer graphics, special effects, and autonomous vehicles. Most recently, Guibas and collaborators developed a large-scale dataset of 3D models of everyday objects, part of an ambitious effort to accelerate 3D deep learning.
Guibas has received several honors for his work, including election to the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His 580 publications, refereed conference papers, and textbooks stand as a testament to the enduring scholarly impact of his work.
Eddy W. Hartenstein (MS '74)
Retired executive
For his pioneering role in bringing satellite communications to consumers as the founding president of DIRECTV; and for shaping the landscape of Southern California news as chief executive officer and publisher of the Los Angeles Times.
Eddy Hartenstein is an engineer and business executive who ushered in a new era of consumer satellite communications as the founding president of DIRECTV. By implementing the first direct-to-home satellite digital video and data transmission, Hartenstein offered an alternative to cable companies and their distribution methods. He also served as chief executive officer and publisher of the Los Angeles Times and as president and CEO of the Tribune Media Company.
Hartenstein has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, inducted into the Consumer Electronics Association Hall of Fame, and received a Lifetime Achievement Emmy from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He currently sits on the board of directors for Sirius XM.
Shouleh Nikzad (MS '84, PhD '90)
Chief Technologist, JPL
For her transformative impact on ultraviolet technologies and instrumentation enabling JPL and NASA to tackle mysteries of the universe; for adapting her space innovations into medical tools; and for encouraging colleagues to engage in interdisciplinary collaborations through the JPL Medical Engineering Forum.
Shouleh Nikzad is an innovator and leader at JPL, which Caltech manages for NASA, and internationally recognized for her contributions to nanoscale engineering. One of her innovations, a delta-doped and superlattice-doped detector that achieves nearly 100% quantum efficiency in silicon detectors, solved a 50-year-old challenge in UV imaging. Additionally, Nikzad cofounded the JPL Medical Engineering Forum, an effort to translate NASA's breakthroughs into medical solutions, and has successfully translated space-based imaging sensors into tools for intraoperative tumor delineation and neurosurgery. Her research is the basis of more than 20 patents, and her technologies have been licensed by corporations such as Sony, Samsung, and Canon.
Nikzad was recently elected to the National Academy of Engineering and is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, Optica, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, SPIE, and the American Physical Society. She has received several other honors, including NASA's Outstanding Leadership Medal and the Joseph Weber Award for Astronomical Instrumentation. The International Astronomical Union named an asteroid named after her: Asteroid (540413) Nikzad.
David Van Essen (BS '67)
Alumni Endowed Professor of Neuroscience, Washington University School of Medicine
For his enduring influence on neuroscience, especially advancing the idea that the brain is a unified and interconnected system; for creating computational tools that revolutionized neuroanatomy and neuroimaging; and for his global leadership in the Connectome Project, which studies the structural and functional connectivity of the human brain.
David Van Essen's ideas, tools, and leadership have fundamentally reshaped how the brain is studied and the insights it yields. Through his research, including his iconic visual cortical hierarchy, Van Essen ushered in a new era of neuroscience that went beyond studying isolated phenomena. Instead, Van Essen demonstrated that the brain should be viewed as a unified and interconnected system. Additionally, his research on the cerebral cortex led to the creation of computational tools that revolutionized neuroanatomy and neuroimaging. As a leader of the Human Connectome Project, an initiative that explored brain connectivity, Van Essen set a standard for collecting high-quality datasets and openly sharing information with researchers around the world.
In recognition of his work, Van Essen has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also has been honored with the George A. Miller Prize from the Cognitive Neuroscience Society and the Glass Brain Award from the Organization for Human Brain Mapping.