UC Irvine Receives $20-Million Gift

UC Irvine’s School of Information and Computer Science has received a $20-million gift, matching the largest donation the university has received and enabling it to hire 10 senior professors and help fund their research.

“I really believe this is the kind of gift that will take us to the top tier of computer excellence nationwide,” said Debra Richardson, interim dean of the school. “The biggest thing is it will bring in some really stellar faculty.”

The university did not release the name of the donor.

The computer science school has seen tremendous growth in recent years. Enrollment of graduate and undergraduate students has more than doubled since 1998, to more than 2,400.

Of its 51 faculty members, 31 were hired in the last four years. The school is hiring eight more professors in addition to these new endowed chairs.

Richardson said it will take seven to 10 years to fill the endowed chairs. Those professors will be paid about $150,000 a year. Three of the chairs will be filled with professors doing interdisciplinary research, combining computing with other subjects.

More than $18 million of the donation will endow the chairs and spin off about $90,000 a year in research funds for each of those professors. Most of their research money will come from federal grants.

The rest of the gift will endow a research fund at the computer science school to be used at the dean’s discretion. Richardson said it will be used as seed money for interdisciplinary projects and corporate collaborations. The money will also be used to enhance educational programs and efforts to license technological advances to private companies.

The $20-million gift equals one from Broadcom Corp. founder Henry Samueli and his wife, Susan, who gave to the school of engineering, which now carries his name.