Gift Will Advance Mathematical Research in the School of Physical Sciences

Edward O. Thorp, a founding faculty member and pioneer in the field of quantitative finance, has donated $1 million to help attract exceptionally talented mathematicians to UC Irvine. The gift, made jointly by Thorp and his wife, Vivian, establishes the Edward and Vivian Thorp Endowment in the Department of Mathematics. The Thorps are residents of Newport Coast.

Their donation will be invested and distributed according to a proprietary strategy developed by Edward Thorp, who is known worldwide for successfully applying mathematical theory to gaming and the stock market.

The gift initially will be used to support the research of a faculty member to be recruited in the coming months. The Thorps hope that their gift eventually will grow in such a way that it funds one of the most richly endowed chairs in the world.

Thorp was a UCI professor of mathematics from 1965 to 1977 and a professor of mathematics and finance from 1977 to 1982. He was the first to prove a mathematical system for beating blackjack and helped developed the first wearable computer, used to test another of his theories at the roulette tables in Las Vegas. In 1962 he published “Beat the Dealer: A Winning Strategy for the Game of Twenty-One� and later was persuaded to apply his thinking to the stock market. This resulted in him co-authoring “Beat the Market: A Scientific Stock Market System� with UCI Professor Emeritus Sheen T. Kassouf. Today, Thorp is president of Edward O. Thorp and Associates in Newport Beach and until recently ran one of the most successful hedge funds in the country.

“Vivian and I have greatly benefited from the knowledge I have acquired in mathematics and my association with the mathematical community. It’s our chance to give back, in a modest way, to mathematics, mathematicians and a great university,� said Thorp.

“The Thorps’ gift is at once generous and farsighted,� said Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone. “Gifts such as these help us attract today’s brightest faculty and lay the foundation for future success in the decades to come.�
“The Thorp endowment establishes a chair that will allow us to attract the best faculty and continue to develop an outstanding Department of Mathematics,� said Ronald J. Stern, dean of the School of Physical Sciences. “We are in the initial phase of launching a nationwide recruitment and hope to hire a new faculty member who will occupy this chair by the summer of 2004.�
The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked public university dedicated to the principles of research, scholarship and community. Founded in 1965, UCI is among the fastest-growing University of California campuses, with more than 24,000 undergraduate and graduate students and about 1,300 faculty members. The third-largest employer in dynamic Orange County, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $3 billion.