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In December, six Caltech students travelled to Gandhinagar, India for the India Institute of Technology Gandhinagar (IITGN)’s India Ki Khoj program. India Ki Khoj is an immersive program in which Caltech, IITGN, and Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) students gather at IITGN to listen to lectures on Indian culture and society, visit historical sites throughout Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad, and interact with each other to gain a greater understanding and appreciation of each other’s cultures. Lectures varied from interactive discussions about Indian philosophy to classical song and dance performances to examples of religion’s impact on Indian art. My personal favorite was Professor Rita Kothari’s talk about Indian cinema. She specifically focused on the fantasy-like plots of Bollywood movies and how they both reflected and impacted the social norms of Indian society. She argued that for many Indians, Bollywood represented an alternate world with seemingly perfect lives, and acted as an escape from reality. However, fantasy can be problematic. Like the American entertainment industry, Bollywood suffers from lack of representation and can be ignorant of social issues. Kothari, however, is hopeful for the future, with a younger generation of directors creating more meaningful, less-stereotypical Hindi films. Clearly, these lectures challenged many beliefs I held about Indian society. Most days, we filled the time between lectures with field trips, sometimes including a traditional Gujarati lunch or dinner. Two of these trips made a big impression on me: the Kasturbhai Lalbhai Museum and the Palaj village. The Kasturbhai Lalbhai Museum was almost an Ahmedabad version of Pasadena’s Huntington Library! It used to be the home of a textile entrepreneur, but now displays the artwork of Nobel Laureate Rabindrananth Tagore’s family. The museum’s architecture was gorgeous, and the works were full of history. I could have stayed there for days! The Palaj village, on the other hand, gave us a taste of authentic Indian life. We saw their farmland, played with the village kids, talked to IITGN students who volunteered there, and learned about the village’s education system. It was truly an eye-opening experience that reminded me of the privileges of suburban American life. Furthermore, the traditional thalis style meals were fantastic, and provided significant diversity to my typically mundane vegetarian diet. Although the lectures and field trips were important, others and I felt that the interactions with IITGN and JAIST students were the most impactful part of the trip. It is not every day that you can sit in a room with people from nearly every region of India and Japan! While there were several cultural aspects that we got to educate each other on, I was amazed at everything that we bonded over! If nothing else, India Ki Khoj taught me how oddly similar our world is. Though we live completely different lives on separate continents, we can all bond over the same jokes and TV shows. While seemingly trivial, it reminded me that no matter what, we are all human at our core, and every culture and experience should be approached with an open mind. That being said, I am eternally grateful to the Caltech Y and IITGN for this opportunity; I will cherish this time in India and with the IIT and JAIST students for the rest of my life.

Fred Clayton, Community Member and Caltech Y Board Member Caltech Y Board Member, Fred Clayton, is a lifelong veteran of community service. “Simply put,” he says, “life without non-profit service would leave me unfulfilled.” Since graduating from college, he has always served on at least one board, often on its executive committee. Besides his work with the Caltech Y, he is also now serving on the Advisory Board to the 2020 U.S. Olympic Team Trials for Track & Field. In the past, he has worked with numerous organizations, including The Paralysis Project of America, The March of Dimes, and the Pasadena Methodist Foundation. At the Caltech Y, he especially admires the way the Rise Tutoring Program provides both student mentors and the struggling students an enormous opportunity for personal growth. He believes the students will remember the experience for the rest of their lives. He and his wife of 45 years, Susan, live in San Gabriel enjoying their three children and two young grandchildren. When he is not chasing the toddlers, Fred enjoys watching football and basketball. He says people would be surprised to learn that in his youth, he was a gymnast, specializing in the pommel horse. Professionally, he is an executive search consultant to corporations, universities, and large non-profit organizations. He is currently chairman of Berkhemer Clayton Inc, a Los Angeles-based firm he co-founded in 1994 and where he served as CEO until last year. Fred was first introduced to the Caltech Y by board member, Jon Webster, who invited him to the Y Golf Tournament and subsequently nominated him for the board. When asked who, living or dead, he would invite to a Friends Dinner, Fred answered, “Being a practical person, I would, and perhaps will, identify and selectively invite heads of private and corporate grant-making foundations with whom the Y does not currently have a relationship.” Fred brings a myriad of valuable service experience and skills to the Caltech Y, and we look forward to working with him! The Friends are the primary supporters of the Caltech Y. It is through generous contributions of our Friends that the Y is able to continue its long-standing mission of reaching out to the Caltech community with fresh ideas, student programming and active community service. To find out more please visit www.caltechy.org/support-us or contact us at caltechy@caltech.edu.

The 2017 Washington, D.C. Science Policy Trip provided 22 enthusiastic participants (nine undergrads, 12 grads and a postdoc) with an intimate glimpse into U.S. policy in the nation’s capital. Students met with policy makers, leading administrators, science advisors, and lobbyists to hear a variety of perspectives on the creation and implementation of science policy. Combined with the informative and challenging discussion sessions were opportunities for cultural exploration and sightseeing of some of the nation’s most historic structures. Trip participants included four student leaders: undergrads Janice Jeon and Chloe Hsu, members of the Caltech Y ExComm, and graduate students, and Ollie Stephenson and Nick Weadock, members of the Caltech Y Social Activism Speaker Series (SASS) Committee. Two staff members, Greg Fletcher and Agnes Tong, accompanied the group on the trip as well. Each day our group had the opportunity to visit impressive sites and meet with equally impressive people engaged in policy there. A small group of alumni welcomed the group to Washington, joining us at William Foundation (NSF), the State Department, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). We met with more than 30 current and former science advisors, lobbyists, policy makers, and administrators including the following alumni: Jim Battey, Director of the National Institute for Deafness and other Communicative Disorders (NIDCD) Rebecca Adler Miserendino, Foreign Affairs Officer and Senior Climate Finance Advisor at the State Department Michael Ledford, Vice President at Lewis-Burke Associates (lobbyists for Caltech) John Andelin, former Assistant Director of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) Mike Nelson, former Science and Technology Advisor to Vice President Al Gore and the Senate Subcommittee on Science, Technology and Space Bill Colglazier, former Science and Technology Advisor to Secretaries of State Clinton and Kerry and former Executive Officer for the National Academy of Sciences Patricia Neil, Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) Yi Pei, Program Examiner at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and Kevin Kuhn, Special Assistant to Deputy Assistant Administrator for Research and Development at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Once again, the trip was wildly successful in introducing Caltech students to the intersection of science and policy: In the words of some of our students: “The D.C. Science Policy Trip taught me that scientific research is not done in a vacuum, and it has made me more attentive to political issues. Through site visits and daily fireside Q&A sessions, I saw a lot of new possibilities to take on social responsibilities as a scientist.” - Chloe Hsu “The D.C. trip was a fascinating opportunity to interact with people working at the heart of government. I was amazed by the level of access to senior officials that we managed. It certainly exposed me to the wide variety of roles that scientists can go into and drew back the curtain on what can be quite a mysterious world for researchers.” - Ollie Stephenson “My first trip to DC will certainly be a memorable one after the interesting and fun experience I had with the Y.” - Janice Jeon The speakers were all very responsive to the group and attentive to the students’ individual questions. Based on feedback there is no reason to assume that the Washington, D.C. Science Policy Trip will not continue for years to come. The D.C. trip was coordinated by the Caltech Y and made possible with the generous support of the George W. Housner Student Discovery Fund.