Five Caltech faculty members have been selected to receive the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development, or CAREER, Award starting this year, an honor that supports junior faculty who combine research and teaching. The recipients work in aerospace, astronomy, theoretical astrophysics, biology and geobiology.
Key facts
- The NSF CAREER Award is described by the agency as its most prestigious award for junior faculty members.
- Caltech’s 2026 recipients are Jane Bae, Kareem El-Badry, Elias Most, Trevor Nolan and Julia Tejada.
- The awards are intended to support awardees as teacher-scholars who integrate education and research.
- The honorees’ research spans turbulence modeling, black holes, long-period radio transients, plant developmental biology and paleobiology.
Who received the awards?
The five recipients are Jane Bae, assistant professor of aerospace and Susan Wu Scholar; Kareem El-Badry, associate professor of astronomy; Elias Most, assistant professor of theoretical astrophysics and William H. Hurt Scholar; Trevor Nolan, assistant professor of biology and biological engineering; and Julia Tejada, assistant professor of geobiology and William H. Hurt Scholar.
Bae studies the physical mechanisms behind turbulence and develops models that simulate complex flows, including those near wind farms and aircraft. El-Badry studies binary stars, black holes and related stellar phenomena. Most’s work includes radio emission from binary stars and simulations of black hole-neutron star collisions. Nolan studies signaling among plant root cells, and Tejada uses stable isotopes and fossil evidence to study animal biology and deep-time evolution.
What does the NSF CAREER Award recognize?
The NSF says CAREER Awards are designed to enable awardees to develop as outstanding teacher-scholars. The agency says recipients are chosen because they exemplify teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within their organizations’ missions.
For Caltech, the awards highlight faculty whose labs and research programs connect classroom teaching with active scientific investigation. The honorees’ work ranges from computing and machine learning for turbulence modeling to geochemistry, developmental biology and astrophysics.
What does this mean for students and researchers at Caltech?
The awards can matter directly for students because they support faculty who are building research programs that also include teaching. At Caltech, that means access to projects tied to aerospace, astronomy, biology and geobiology, as well as to the mentoring of faculty recognized by the NSF for integrating education and research.
For applicants and current students interested in these areas, the practical takeaway is that the award-winning faculty are active in research that spans simulations, surveys, fieldwork, model organisms and geochemical analysis. Those programs can shape lab training, research opportunities and the kinds of questions available in graduate and undergraduate work.
- Bae’s work focuses on turbulence and flow simulation.
- El-Badry studies stellar systems that include black holes and neutron stars.
- Most investigates astrophysical transients and compact-object collisions.
- Nolan develops genetic tools for plant biology research.
- Tejada combines fossil studies and stable isotope geochemistry.
Why these faculty stand out
The five awards reflect a broad slice of Caltech research. Bae applies machine learning and data science to turbulence modeling. El-Badry has made discoveries using large astronomical survey datasets, including the first-known black hole triple and the closest known black hole to Earth. Most has used supercomputer simulations to study black hole-neutron star mergers and the shock waves they may produce.
Nolan’s lab uses Arabidopsis thaliana to probe how cells coordinate to build organs, while Tejada’s work extends from stable isotope chemistry to fieldwork in the western Amazon. Together, the projects show how the CAREER Award is being used to support faculty whose research also has teaching and training value.
What happens next?
The awards begin this year. At Caltech, the recognition places the five faculty members among NSF-supported junior scholars whose work is expected to combine discovery with education. For students, that means the research programs tied to these awards are likely to remain central parts of the institute’s teaching and lab environment.
