The Watson Lectures

collage of watson 2024-25 season speakers

For more than 100 years, the Watson Lectures have brought the wonder of Caltech research and discovery to the public.

Jump to: Upcoming Lectures • Past Lectures

Join a Community of Curiosity!

Caltech welcomes you to the Watsons, an engaging lecture series in Beckman Auditorium, where you will hear from scientists and engineers on the forefront of discovery who are expanding knowledge, tackling society's most pressing challenges, and inventing the technologies of the future.

Free and open to the public, the Earnest C. Watson Lecture Series offers a unique and accessible opportunity to learn more about cutting-edge science directly from Caltech's premier researchers. Come early to mingle with your neighbors over food, drink and music, as well as interactive displays related to the evening's topic. Then head inside to hear a stimulating talk and stay to ask your burning questions.

A recording or each live event will be made available on our Youtube channel.

Evening Schedule

6 p.m. — Activities and music. Food, drinks, and books available for purchase.7:00 p.m. — Doors open7:30 p.m. — Talk and Q&A8:30 p.m. — Post-talk coffee and tea

Upcoming Lectures

February 26, 2025 7:30 pm

Watson Lecture - Rob Phillips: The Hidden Poetry of the Genome

Beckman Auditorium

March 26, 2025 7:30 pm

Watson Lecture - Brian Jacobson

Beckman Auditorium

April 23, 2025 7:30 pm

Watson Lecture - Smruthi Karthikeyan

Beckman Auditorium

May 28, 2025 7:30 pm

Watson Lecture - Tracy Drain

Beckman Auditorium

A Legacy of Sharing Science with the Community

The Earnest C. Watson Lecture Series began in 1922. Originally known as the "Friday Evening Demonstration Lectures," the series was started by Earnest C. Watson, a professor of physics at Caltech from 1919 to 1959, in order to share modern scientific advances with the public and foster a greater appreciation for the impact of fundamental research. For the talks, Watson would stand in front of a packed lecture hall to deliver his famed "liquid-air" demonstration, in which he would open a bottle of air that had been cooled to minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit, and the contents would appear to "boil" out of the bottle and engulf Watson in white fumes. While Watson's famed demonstrations would no longer meet current safety guidelines, the spirit of his talks and his interest in inspiring an appreciation and understanding of science remains and has motivated generations of faculty to share the details of their work.

Eventually renamed in his honor, the Watson Lectures continue to spotlight pathbreaking Caltech research.

Read more about the legacy of Earnest C. Watson here.

Explore Past Lectures

Our universe is shaped by the struggle of forces between matter and the attraction of gravity that brings matter together. In the case of neutron stars, matter puts up the ultimate defense, as gravity crushes matter down to densities that exceed those of atomic nuclei. Such neutron stars pack more mass than our Sun down to a size no bigger than Los Angeles. At even further extremes, gravity will lead to the total demise of matter, collapsing everything into a black hole. Yet, at the same time, gravity also provides the means to study such extreme objects as neutron stars and black holes: gravitational waves, "ripples" in space-time that are emitted when neutron stars and black holes collide while traveling at a fraction of the speed of light. Katerina Chatziioannou, assistant professor of physics and William H. Hurt Scholar, describes how researchers track collisions of neutron stars and black holes with gravitational waves, and what we are learning about the universe's most extreme objects.

While we are no strangers to pandemics, medicine is ill-prepared for the rapid increase in bacterial infections that cannot be treated. To prevent the return to the era before penicillin, we must develop new strategies for killing pathogenic bacteria. One option is to harness bacteria's oldest enemy, the viruses known as phages. In this talk, Bil Clemons, the Arthur and Marian Hanisch Memorial Professor of Biochemistry, shares his lab's work to understand the methods some phages have evolved to kill bacteria. He explains how this work can be leveraged for new therapies and new biological tools. Clemons is also the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's science program officer for diversity, equity, and inclusion in science.

Watch more past Watson Lectures on Caltech's YouTube channel.