Ruth & Eddie Hughes Lecture

Ruth and Eddie Hughes were longtime members of the Caltech community who contributed greatly to both the scientific and non-scientific life of the CCE Division and the Institute for over 70 years. Eddie Hughes arrived in Pasadena as a research fellow in 1938, brought here by Pauling from Cornell to do crystallography. He is best known for determining the structure of melamine in 1941 that introduced least squares refinements into crystallography, and for teaching crystallography to generations of Caltech students. Ruth came to Pasadena by way of England where she arrived as a Jewish refugee just before the start of WWII. They married while Eddie was on sabbatical in Leeds in 1951. The Hughes were active participants in campus life, and welcomed generations of scholars and their families to campus, particularly those from abroad. Following Ruth's passing in 2009, their generous bequest is being used to support a range of activities in the Division, including graduate student fellowships and this special lecture series that we are pleased to hold in their honor.