A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
Luskin Orthopaedic Institute for Children
Meyer and Renee Luskin pledged $50 million to support the hospital’s work treating children with orthopedic conditions and injuries. The hospital primarily serves underinsured children and is associated with University of California at Los Angeles’s health system. It is home to a range of research and medical education programs. The hospital was named for the Luskins in 2022, when they gave the hospital $15 million for endowment.
Meyer Luskin founded Scope Industries in 1961. The Santa Monica, Calif., company recycles bakery waste to make animal feed. The Luskins both graduated from UCLA; he earned a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1949 and Renee Luskin earned a bachelor’s degree in sociology in 1953.
In addition to their Luskin Institute gifts, the couple have given UCLA at least $115 million since 2010 to support the School of Public Affairs, the Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center, and the Luskin Center for History and Policy. They appeared on the Chronicle’s annual Philanthropy 50 list of biggest donors in 2010.
University of Rochester
Thomas Golisano pledged $50 million to establish and build the Golisano Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Institute at the University of Rochester Medical Center. The institute will bring together researchers and experts from across the university to develop new treatments, patient care services, and caregiver-support programs aimed at improving the health and quality of life for people living with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The donation will also support the newly named Golisano Specialty Clinic at Eastman Dental Center.
Golisano founded Paychex, which provides payroll, human resource, and benefits and insurance services to small- to medium-size businesses in the United States and Northern Europe. He is a prolific and longtime donor who has given hundreds of millions of dollars personally and through his Golisano Foundation to children’s hospitals, colleges and universities, medical centers, and the Special Olympics, among others. Including his latest gift, he has given the University of Rochester Medical Center nearly $100 million.
University of South Carolina
Alex Molinaroli and Kristin Ihle Molinaroli gave $30 million to support the College of Engineering and Computing, which will be renamed for the donors. Alex Molinaroli has deep family ties to the university. His father, Adrian, graduated from the engineering school in 1951, and an uncle, an aunt, his brother Raymond, and two cousins all graduated from University of South Carolina.
Alex Molinaroli earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering at the university in 1983 and then went to work for Johnson Controls, a company that produces fire, HVAC, and security equipment. He worked in sales and operations and was later promoted to vice president, general manager, and president before eventually becoming CEO in 2013. He retired in 2017.
Kristin Ihle Molinaroli is president of Avant, a consulting firm that coaches business leaders and their employees. She founded the firm’s research and development division and is also a sports psychologist who has worked with NCAA sports teams and individual athletes.
Case Western Reserve University
Kevin Kranzusch and Lynne Bosworth gave $10 million to expand the computer and data sciences department in the university’s Case School of Engineering. Of the total, $3 million will endow faculty projects, teaching needs, and curriculum development; $3 million will create an endowment for student programs; $2 million will support the Kranzusch Fellows Fund; and the remaining $2 million will establish an endowed professorship.
Kevin Kranzusch is vice president of Nvidia Corporation, a company that develops software and microchips for artificial-intelligence applications. The company has been credited with modernizing computer graphics and helping to advance the gaming market. He graduated from the university in 1990.
The couple gave the university $5 million in 2019 to establish the computer and data sciences department, and in 2021 they gave an additional $5 million to back two endowed professorships and to support fellowships within the department.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
Ge Li gave $10 million through his Ge Li & Ning Zhao Family Foundation to establish the Ning Zhao & Ge Li Family Initiative in Nursing and the Ning Zhao Chair of Nursing. The latter is the first endowed nursing position of its kind at Dana-Farber. The money will also launch the Ning Zhao & Ge Li Endowed Scholarship Fund for Clinical Assistants, which will provide support for Dana-Farber clinical assistants who are currently in nursing school; and it will be used to build the Ning Zhao & Ge Li Simulation Center.
Ge Li, a Chinese American whose net worth is estimated at more than $5 billion, co-founded the pharmaceutical research firm WuXi AppTec with his late wife Ning Zhao. The couple met as students at Peking University in the 1980s and came to the United States to attend graduate school at Columbia University, where they both earned Ph.D. degrees in chemistry.
He started his career working for Pharmacopeia and she worked for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacopeia, and Bristol Myers Squibb. They started their company in 2000. Zhao died last year after a 20-year battle with cancer. She was 56.
National Symphony Orchestra
Roger Sant pledged $10 million for endowment. A long-time member of the orchestra’s Board of Directors, Sant has given the organization more than $35 million, including this latest pledge. He co-founded the AES Corporation, an international electric-power company, in Arlington, Va.
Sant started his career working in finance in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1974, he was appointed to the Federal Energy Administration where he worked for two years on energy conservation and the environment. He then started a think tank focused on studying energy efficiency before launching AES in 1981.
University of Illinois at Chicago College of Nursing
Christine Schwartz gave $10 million to launch the Nurse Anesthetist Program and to expand the college’s simulation labs. Schwartz is a former nurse who in 2018 gave the college $5 million to support the labs and the college’s experiential training programs. She has also supported the nursing program at the University of Miami.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
