Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh has announced a $15 million gift from alumnus William Strecker and his wife, Nancy, to endow a dean's chair in the College of Engineering.

The Dr. William D. and Nancy W. Strecker Dean's Chair will support strategic priorities that advance the College of Engineering's educational and research initiatives across its seven departments and provide additional support for institutes and programs at CMU locations in Silicon Valley and Africa. Incoming dean William H. Sanders will be the inaugural holder of the chair, effective January 1, 2020.

Bill Strecker earned his bachelor's ('66), master's ('67), and doctoral ('71) degrees from CMU's electrical engineering program. Strecker's career has spanned decades at several technology companies, including In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit that works with startups to provide technology to the U.S. intelligence community and where he was chief technology officer and executive vice president at the time of his retirement. He met his wife, Nancy, a mathematician, when they both worked at Digital Equipment Corporation. Longtime supporters of CMU, the couple established the Dr. William D. and Nancy W. Strecker Early Career Professorship in 2013 to assist talented junior faculty members in electrical and computer engineering.

"Bill and I are both very passionate about education, which can have such a significant impact on every individual human being, and more broadly as a driver for human rights," said Nancy Strecker. "We have been affiliated with many great universities, and we find the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon represents educational excellence at its finest. Our gift is not only an investment in the future of engineering at CMU, but consequently because of CMU, it is an investment driver in the future of engineering across the field."