A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:
University of California at Los Angeles Health
Los Angeles businesswoman Shirley Wang and her husband, Walter Wang, pledged $25 million to establish the Walter and Shirley Wang Center for Integrative Digestive Health. The center will offer integrative health care, including medical, psychological, and dietary care and guidance for people living with gastrointestinal disorders.
Shirley Wang founded and leads Plastpro, a Los Angeles company that manufactures fiberglass doors and home products. She earned a bachelor’s degree in communications and international business at UCLA in 1990 and started her career as an account executive for J. Walter Thompson Advertising, later working as an account executive for Citigroup. Walter Wang founded and leads JM Eagle, a plastic-pipe manufacturing firm in Los Angeles.
George Mason University
Kimmy Duong and her husband, Long Nguyen, gave $20 million through their Kimmy Duong Foundation to establish three endowments within the School of Computing, to be named for the couple. Two of the endowments will support scholarships and student-success programs in the College of Engineering and Computing, and the third will back the Long Nguyen and Kimmy Dong Scholarship Endowment and will help students majoring in education, journalism, and nursing.
Duong and Nguyen founded Pragmatics Inc., an IT consulting firm in Reston, Va., in 1985. Duong serves as the company’s chief financial officer, and Nguyen is chairman, president, and CEO. Nguyen is a former professor who taught computer science at Georgetown University and Indiana University-Purdue University.
Originally from Vietnam, Duong earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Saigon, and then worked for IBM in Saigon. The Vietnam War interrupted her career there and she fled the country when Saigon fell to the communist North Vietnamese in 1975. Duong arrived in the United States with two suitcases and $30, but her IBM connections proved fruitful, and she landed another job with the company and eventually became a computer systems analyst.
A portion of the couple’s donation will be eligible for matching funds from Virginia’s Tech Talent Investment Program, a statewide effort aimed at increasing the number of graduates with computing degrees.
National Academy of Sciences
Sima Needleman and her family gave $20 million to launch the Philip and Sima Needleman Family Legacy Fund, which will support two of the foundation’s programs. The first is the existing NAS Frontiers of Science program, which brings together young scientists to learn about research in disciplines outside their own and build a network of colleagues from a variety of worldwide institutions. The second program is a new effort that aims to address national and global challenges in science, engineering, and medicine.
Philip Needleman is Sima Needleman’s late husband. He was a professor and chairman of the department of pharmacology at Washington University in St. Louis from 1986 to 1989, and later became the chief scientist for Monsanto, where he led the development of the arthritis drug Celebrex.
He held several other positions after leaving Monsanto, including as interim president of the Danforth Plant Science Center, in Creve Coeur, Mo., and as a special adviser to Ben Gurion University in Israel, where he founded the National Institute for Biotechnology in the Negev. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1989 and died last year at 85.
Purdue University
Amy and Greg Baker pledged $20 million to support research programs in the new Center for Health Analytics and Therapeutic Intelligence, within the College of Pharmacy. The center’s research efforts will focus on using real-world data, artificial intelligence and analytics to advance the way medications are studied, evaluated, and applied toward treating patients.
Greg Baker founded and leads AffirmedRx, a Louisville, Ky., company that manages prescription drug benefits on behalf of health insurers and employers. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Purdue in 1999 and worked as a pharmacist for 20 years before starting his company in 2021.
Amy Baker also started her career as a pharmacist. She went on to serve as vice president for pharmacy networks and clinical integration at AffirmedRx and is now CEO of JustifyRx Collective, another prescription-drug benefits-management company.
Agnes Scott College
Mary Lou Cornwall Hawkes and her husband, James Hawkes, gave $15 million to support the college’s Physician Assistant program, a newly established two-year program aimed at promoting more inclusive health care. Of the total, the Hawkes are giving $10 million to endow the program and $5 million to renovate Hopkins Hall, which houses the program.
Mary Lou Cornwall Hawkes graduated from the college in 1965 and later served on its Board of Trustees. James Hawkes is chairman emeritus of Eaton Vance Corporation, an investment management firm in Boston. He joined the firm in 1970 as an equity research analyst, and worked his way up to director of research in 1979, chief investment officer in 1985, and then president, CEO, and chairman in the 1990s. He retired in 2007.
Southeastern University
Sandra and Robert Graper left $12 million to support the Graper Family Scholarship Endowment, which will provide scholarships for full-time students pursuing a religious ministry-related degree at the university.
Robert Graper worked for the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company for 36 years, retiring as director of investor relations. He joined the company in 1959 after serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. He died in 2021 at 89. Sandra Graper, who died last year at 87, worked as a nurse before leaving medicine to start a family.
To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.
