Michigan State University has announced a $2 million gift from an anonymous alumni couple to fund an endowed chair focused on transportation infrastructure research.

The estate gift will support efforts in the university's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to examine the nation's crumbling transportation infrastructure, with an emphasis on bridge research. According to the male donor, a retired engineer, the couple hopes the gift will enhance engineers' capacity to advance design, materials, construction, maintenance, restoration, and financial strategies to address the country's infrastructure needs. The gift to the university's Empower Extraordinary campaign, a $1.5 billion effort publicly launched in October 2014, raises the number of endowed chairs in the College of Engineering to seven. One of the campaign's key goals is to establish more endowed faculty chairs across the university.

"A trip of any length will take you over a bridge that is functionally deficient or even obsolete today," the donor said. "It seems like the effort to repair them is coming up short."

"The advanced mobility systems being designed today at Michigan State and elsewhere will require upgraded roads and bridges," said MSU president Lou Anna K. Simon. "This generous gift will deepen our capabilities in developing the infrastructure needed for the transportation of today and tomorrow."