Couple donate $5M to support nanotechnology
Published: February 21, 2006
University of Pittsburgh alumnus John Petersen and his wife, Gertrude, donated $5 million to create an endowment supporting nanotechnology research at the school, officials said Monday.
Pitt has renamed its Institute of NanoScience and Engineering after the couple. The institute was created in 2002 to focus on nanotechnology — the science of working with things that are one-billionth of a meter, or more than 1,000 times narrower than the diameter of a human hair.
Since then, the university staffed the institute with 40 faculty members — with plans to hire nine new researchers — and started construction on a 4,000-square-foot nanoscale fabrication laboratory that will open this fall in Benedum Hall in Oakland.
“We really feel very fortunate that the Petersens have decided that this is a worthy cause, and they are providing an endowment that will allow us to operate the program in a healthy way,” said Pitt Provost James Maher.
Petersen is the retired CEO of Erie Insurance Group in Erie, one of the nation’s biggest property/casualty insurance firms. He graduated from Pitt in 1951 with a degree in business administration and remains a loyal supporter of his alma mater.
In 1999, he and his wife donated $10 million to the university — the biggest individual gift in Pitt history — to finance the convocation center, which also bears their name. The Petersens also recently donated $600,000 to Pitt’s athletic department to support baseball and swimming scholarships.
Scientists believe nanotechnology could be used to fabricate products that are not only smaller, but cleaner, stronger, lighter and more precise.
Work already done by researchers at Pitt helped to develop color-shifting paints, a contact lens-embedded sensor to monitor glucose levels, and scaffolding to heal damaged hearts.
If you enjoyed this good news Subscribe to Good News Blog
Share this
To share this simply copy and paste one of the below URL's: