Contribution will enhance educational and economic vitality of Orange County


UC Irvine has received a $20 million gift to help attract and support the work of leading researchers in the university’s nationally ranked School of Information and Computer Science. The gift from a donor who asked to remain anonymous matches the largest single contribution ever to UCI and will create 10 endowed faculty positions – an unprecedented number in a single gift to the campus.

“This remarkable contribution will enable us to enhance quality in our research and teaching, and continue to elevate UC Irvine among the nation’s top universities,� said Chancellor Ralph J. Cicerone. “This gift will place current and future generations of UCI students at the forefront of information technology research, and benefit the economic vitality of Orange County and the region.�

More than $18 million of the gift will go toward an endowment to recruit and support 10 senior-level professors, or endowed chairs, who will lead pioneering information technology research spanning software, hardware, bioinformatics and data analysis, with the unifying theme of “ubiquitous computing� – where technology recedes into the background of everyday life. Three of the 10 positions will be dedicated to interdisciplinary research bridging computing with other disciplines across campus. The first recruitments will begin immediately.

The remainder of the gift will create an endowed fund for excellence to be used at the School of Information and Computer Science dean’s discretion to support schoolwide, interdisciplinary and university-industry collaborations emphasizing new research, with the balance going toward educational programs and enhanced technology transfer efforts.

UCI’s School of Information and Computer Science is the first independent computer science school within the UC system and one of the fastest-growing programs of its kind in the nation. Debra Richardson, Ted and Janice Smith Family Foundation Interim Dean of the school, said: “This is a great day for information and computer science at UCI. This gift caps an incredible first year for our school, and will provide an important margin of excellence as we expand our broad educational and research efforts, and continue to recruit the most talented faculty and students.�

Information and computer science enrollment at UCI has grown by more than 125 percent since 1998, to more than 2,400 undergraduate and graduate students. With experts in areas ranging from embedded computer systems and networking to bioinformatics and the social impacts of computing, the school currently ranks 15th among all public university computer science graduate programs, according to U.S. News & World Report. The UC regents promoted information and computer science to a school in December 2002.

The gift increases the number of endowed chair positions at UCI to more than 60. UCI’s current endowed chair holders include such distinguished scholars and researchers as Nobel Prize-winning chemist F. Sherwood Rowland, National Medal of Science recipient Francisco Ayala, renowned microbiologist Masayasu Nomura, business and economic policy expert Richard McKenzie, and recognized choreographer Donald McKayle.

“This gift demonstrates the donor’s extraordinary generosity and commitment to our young people and to higher education. It will elevate our School of Information and Computer Science in research and academics, and enhance the economic engine that is Orange County,� said UCI Foundation Chair Ted Smith, who also chairs the leadership council of the school. Smith, with his family, established the school’s first endowed chair, which is held by Interim Dean Richardson.

UCI’s other $20 million gift came from Henry and Susan Samueli in 1999 to support the school of engineering that now bears his name.

The University of California, Irvine is a top-ranked public university dedicated to research, scholarship and community. Founded in 1965, UCI has more than 23,000 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.