Maria and Sándor Kovacs

In a gesture of love and gratitude, Maria Kovacs has made a $2 million donation to support graduate students in Caltech’s Theoretical Astrophysics Including Relativity (TAPIR) program. The gift honors her brother, Sándor Kovacs (MS ’72, PhD ’77), who studied the theory of gravitational waves under the tutelage of Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne (BS ’62), Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics, Emeritus.

The gift establishes the Sándor J. Kovacs Graduate Fellowship, ensuring that future generations of TAPIR students will have resources to focus on their intellectual development and contribute to the field of theoretical astrophysics.

Maria, a psychiatry and psychology professor at the University of Pittsburgh, hopes this gift will link Sándor, whom she calls "öcsi" (Hungarian for "younger brother"), forever with Caltech. "If you love something or someone, you want to create a lasting connection," says Maria, who is called “Marika” by family and friends. "This gift is like a love story, linking Sándor with Caltech in a meaningful way."

Marika’s gift also establishes discretionary funds for TAPIR researchers, inspired by Thorne's experience. Thorne first encountered the mathematical theory of gravitational waves as a graduate student while on an intensive, two-month-long retreat in France, supported by departmental funding. "Kip convinced me of the importance of funding for students to collaborate or attend presentations abroad, and I trusted his judgement," Marika says.

Thorne says he was very surprised and extremely pleased when Marika first approached him to discuss making a significant gift to TAPIR. "The type of gift she has given really makes a big difference," Thorne says. “It’s extremely high value to graduate students, because it allows them to focus on their research in a more intensive way during a time when it may be crucial for their research.”

Marika’s gift supports the Initiative for Caltech Students, a campaign to raise $250 million to support the student experience, including $60 million for graduate fellowships.

"When you invest in graduate students, you invest in the future," says Sándor, now a professor of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. "Supporting graduate students is very difficult, so this gift is a huge benefit."

A Profound Influence

Marika's admiration for Sándor's insatiable curiosity and Caltech's impact on his intellectual development motivated her gift. "Sándor always had an incredible curiosity about how things work," Marika recalls. "Even as a child in refugee camps, he was fascinated by the world around him. Caltech nurtured that curiosity."

The Kovacs family fled Hungary during the 1956 revolution, eventually settling in the United States. Sándor excelled academically, earning a scholarship to Cornell University and later attending Caltech for graduate studies. "If it's possible to love an institution, Sándor absolutely loves Caltech," Marika says. "He always told me that he hoped to give back to Caltech someday, so this gift felt like the perfect way to honor his wishes."

The Journey to Theoretical Astrophysics

Sándor began at Caltech studying theoretical applied mechanics but switched to theoretical physics after taking Thorne’s introductory quantum mechanics course. "Kip's course sparked my curiosity about the universe," Sándor says.

Thorne recalled the traits that made Sándor such an exceptional student. "He wasn’t just brilliant. In addition, he saw opportunities others didn’t and made things happen," Thorne says. "His ability to understand and navigate the everyday human world — his ‘street sense’ — was beyond any other student I ever worked with."

Joining Thorne's research group, Sándor focused on solving astrophysics problems related to "gravitational bremsstrahlung radiation," or the gravitational waves generated by two neutron stars flying past each other at any speed. "We were convinced that Einstein's predictions were measurable and real," Sándor says. "The main challenge was building the equipment capable of detecting these incredibly tiny distortions in space."

Thorne spent the next several decades working with experimental physicists who did just that, and in 2017 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), the first instrument ever to observe gravitational waves.

Memorable Experiences and Lasting Lessons

Sándor says his formative years at Caltech contributed to his personal growth and professional success. "Medicine is practical, but physics was my first love," he explains. "Caltech allowed me to explore that love and curiosity in a way that shaped my entire career."

Sándor fondly recalls his Caltech experiences with legendary physicists like Richard Feynman and George Zweig. As Feynman's teaching assistant, Sándor developed a deep respect for Feynman's intuitive approach to problem-solving. "Feynman's emphasis on intuition and physical understanding before delving into the mathematics has stayed with me throughout my career,” he says.

A turning point for Sándor came when he discovered Zweig had a lab on campus. "He's a theoretical physicist," Sándor recalls thinking. "They don't have labs. They just have pencils and papers."

Upon learning that the lab was in the Division of Biology, Sándor became even more intrigued. When Sándor visited the lab, Zweig was performing experiments on a cat’s inner ear. “Here’s a guy who’s a theorist, co-inventor of the quark model, doing experimental biology,” Sándor says. “I was astounded.”

Zweig’s feline experiments combined biology and math and played a crucial role in his development of wavelet theory, a mathematical tool used to analyze and represent data or functions that change over time. "It completely blew my mind that you could do experiments in living systems and discover new mathematical branches," Sándor says. "It expanded my curiosity about the possibilities when merging mathematics, physics, and biology."

Zweig’s interdisciplinary curiosity later influenced Sándor's decision to pursue the life sciences and medicine. He ultimately decided to apply to the University of Miami's accelerated two-year PhD to MD program. "I realized that the job opportunities in theoretical astrophysics were limited," Sándor explains. "But the experiment I witnessed at Caltech made me even more curious about the relationship between living and mathematical systems, which led me to medicine."

The rigorous analytical skills and interdisciplinary curiosity Sándor developed at Caltech also played a crucial role in his later research on the pumping function of the heart. "When I began researching cardiac function, I applied mathematical models to understand the heart's mechanics, much like how we modeled gravitational waves," Sándor says.

A Legacy of Diverse Achievements

Thorne takes immense pride in the varied and successful careers his students have pursued. "One of the most rewarding aspects of mentoring students is seeing them blossom and find their own paths," Thorne reflects. "It has been particularly gratifying to see them do substantive theoretical physics research and then take the tools and ideas they learned in theoretical physics into other fields. Sándor is a superb example of this."

Sándor's time at Caltech not only shaped his intellectual journey but also fostered lifelong friendships. He remains in close contact with Thorne and other colleagues from his graduate days. "The passion and intensity of being in the same research group formed unique bonds between us," Sándor says. "Even after decades, those bonds remain intact."

Sándor hopes the fellowship recipients will benefit from the same nurturing and intellectually stimulating environment that shaped his career. He advises them to "hang out with people smarter than yourself and trust your gut. If it feels right, it will likely work out."