The University of California, Irvine (UC Irvine) has announced a $50 million gift from Giving Pledge signatories Susan and Henry Samueli that will establish three multidisciplinary research institutes in the Henry Samueli School of Engineering. 

The institutes, which will be unified under the banner “Engineering+” include the Engineering+Health Institute, which will house research into information technologies that bring medical care to underserved communities, synthetic biology to enable customizable disease treatments, and the combination of data science and biomedical device development; the Engineering+Society Institute, which will investigate how automation can enhance the human experience; and the Engineering+Environment Institute, which will study remote sensing of climate impacts, data science for water modeling and management, and large-scale sustainable energy solutions. The gift also includes funding to create the Office of Inreach, dedicated to the well-being, academic success, sense of belonging, and career opportunities for undergraduate students in engineering school. 

Longtime supporters of UC Irvine, the Samuelis committed $200 million in 2017 to create the Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences. In addition, they couple has made donations to support the Henry Samueli School of Engineering, the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute, and the Susan & Henry Samueli Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building.

“Susan and I continue to invest in the University of California, Irvine as an expression of our belief in it as a world-class research and educational institution—and in the invaluable role that public universities play in innovation,” said Henry Samueli, co-founder of the Samueli Foundation. “Engineers are hard-wired as problem solvers; we hope our new gift will allow them to focus their problem-solving skills on some of our world’s largest, most intractable issues.” 

(Photo credit: Steve Zylius/UCI)