Starting next month at California Institute of Technology (Caltech), a community of curious guests will gather for enchanting evenings of food, drinks, and live music to learn directly from some of the greatest minds about the groundbreaking wonders of innovative engineering and curiosity-driven science.
On October 22nd, the annual Earnest C. Watson Lecture Series, which hosts thousands of guests each year, will return to the Caltech campus for its 2025-26 season.
This series, which celebrated its centennial year in 2022, offers multiple opportunities from October 2025 until May 2026 for audiences to learn more about how Caltech researchers are creating innovative technologies of the future to combat society’s most pressing issues.
This event was originally created by Earnest C. Watson, a Caltech physicist, in 1922 to encourage a greater appreciation for fundamental research among members of the public while spotlighting groundbreaking Caltech discoveries.
One example of an upcoming event that honors Watson’s initial vision is a lecture on November 19, 2025, with Dr. Ashwin Vasavada, a project scientist at Caltech’s Mars Science Laboratory. He will be unpacking 13 years of research from the Mars Curiosity rover to analyze the habitability of Mars for humans in the future.
For those more interested in human function and health, Dr. Sarkis Mazmanian’s lecture on April 29, 2026, would be a great fit as well. There, Mazmanian, a professor of microbiology, will teach audience members about how the gut microbiome influences rates of neurodegenerative disease in individuals. All the lectures are free for all to attend.
This year’s events will be hosted by Dr. Crystal Dilworth, a strategic consultant, neuroscientist, and co-founder of The Plenary Co: a behavioral change non-profit think tank.
Each event begins at 6:00 pm with a pre-show on the Caltech Beckman Auditorium lawn for guests to eat from food trucks, socialize, and engage with interactive displays related to the evening’s topic before hearing directly from Caltech scholars on their discoveries.
The lectures then close with an opportunity for audience members to ask their own questions, with guests encouraged to stay after the event for even more post-talk concessions with fellow science enthusiasts.
Join Caltech for the series to learn about how to utilize the technologies of the future and keep the spirit of science alive for future generations to come.
RSVP and find the full list of the lecture series events right here.
