Gifts

Donation from gamer funds new scholarship esports team for 'Super Smash Bros. Ultimate'

UCI Esports will host a pilot scholarship team for “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” during the 2019-20 academic year – thanks to a $50,000 gift from the owners of Street Media, which publishes Irvine Weekly and LA Weekly, led by CEO (and gamer) Brian Calle. Players will be jointly selected by UCI Esports and the TAG Smash […]

UCI institute receives $1 million Prentiss Foundation gift to expand salivary research

Study explores alternative to blood draws in monitoring patients’ lithium levels

Beall family

In honor of the Beall family's support, the campus's entrepreneurial and innovation platform to be renamed UCI Beall Applied Innovation

Irvine, Calif., May 23, 2019 — The University of California, Irvine has received a multimillion-dollar gift from The Beall Family Foundation, led by Donald R. and Joan F. Beall. The largest portion of the gift will go to the campus’s entrepreneurial and innovation platform, UCI Applied Innovation, which will be renamed UCI Beall Applied Innovation. […]

Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture receives $50,000 gift

Dr. Farzan M. Naeim and Dr. Hooshang Meshkinpour have donated $50,000 to create an endowed fund in the Samuel Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture. The gift will advance the mission of the center through supporting lectures, conferences and other programs associated with the Iranian world. “Drs. Naeim and Meshkinpour have been supporters of […]

Anneeth Kaur Hundle appointed to UCI endowed chair in Sikh studies

Faculty position established with $1.5 million gift from Drs. Harvinder and Asha Sahota

$2 million from Pacific Life will support UCI's LIFEvest financial literacy program for teens

The Paul Merage School of Business Center for Investment & Wealth Management’s residential financial literacy program for teens, LIFEvest, has received a $2 million gift from the Pacific Life Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Newport Beach-based insurance company. During the weeklong LIFEvest summer program, local eighth- and ninth-graders from underserved communities have the opportunity […]

Biomedical engineering graduate student wins American Heart Association fellowship

Courtney Carlson, a second-year doctoral student in biomedical engineering, has won a two-year fellowship from the American Heart Association. She will receive $53,000 from the AHA in support of her research project, which involves creating cells that can record their own developmental history in their DNA and then optimizing those cells to study congenital heart disease. […]

Alumnus donates $250,000 to business school

Gregory Lai, MBA ’88, has made his largest donation ever to UCI’s Paul Merage School of Business. The $250,000 Greg and Cindy Lai Endowed Undergraduate Student Award will support Merage students. “I believe that the Merage School is at another inflection point and in the next decade or so will break into the top 20 […]

Professor emerita of history makes legacy gift to fund chair in pre-modern Japanese studies

Anne Walthall, UCI professor emerita of history, has arranged a legacy gift of $2 million, through her estate, to fund an endowed chair in pre-modern Japanese studies. At the turn of the 17th century, Japan began a peaceful period of 250 years of restricted international interaction, allowing the country’s culture to flourish. Artistic achievements considered […]

UCI garners half billion dollars in philanthropic, research funding in 2017-18

Grants and gifts will support lifesaving research, world-class arts and academic excellence