18 New Endowed Chairs Created at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering (2024)

The Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California San Diego is proud to announce the creation of 18 new endowed chairs. These endowed chairs will empower a world-class cohort of faculty to explore new and innovative research directions.

Irwin and Joan Jacobs made these 18 endowed chairs possible through their generous and visionary philanthropy which includes the School naming gift in 1998 and a gift of $110 million in 2003. It was the desire of Irwin Jacobs, and his wife, Joan, who passed away earlier this year, to name the 18 new endowed chairs in honor of early Jacobs School faculty who provided the strong foundations for today’s Jacobs School of Engineering.

“The Jacobs School of Engineering is internationally renowned for its teaching and research, changing the way we look at some of the world’s most pressing problems,” said Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla. “We are grateful to Irwin and Joan Jacobs for their visionary support to establish these endowed chairs, which will help propel the leadership and global influence of the Jacobs School long into the future.”

Each new endowed chair professorship will include the name of a faculty member in engineering and computer science whose contributions to research and teaching have been instrumental in establishing the Jacobs School as one of the top engineering schools in the world.

“Creating endowed chairs is absolutely critical to our efforts to build and strengthen the Jacobs School’s world-class, innovation-driven community where engineers and computer scientists advance research and education for the public good,” said Albert P. Pisano, Dean of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and Special Adviser to the Chancellor. “I am extremely grateful to Irwin and Joan for their incredible vision and generosity over the decades. For an engineering dean, having 18 new endowed chairs is a dream come true.”

Endowed chairs are one of the highest recognitions that can be awarded to a faculty member by their university. They are essential to recruiting, retaining and honoring top minds in academia. Endowed chairs come with annual funding that faculty can use to support graduate students or otherwise initiate new lines of creative research. This flexible funding is often game-changing when it comes to launching new cross-disciplinary research collaborations and generating preliminary results needed to successfully obtain multi-year research funding.

The 18 new endowed chairs are being filled by faculty from across each of the six academic departments at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.

Celebrating Early and Foundational Faculty

The 18 new endowed chairs are each named in honor of an early faculty member of the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, many of whom Irwin met following his joining the faculty in 1966. Irwin and Joan Jacobs’ desire to honor early faculty through the 18 new endowed chairs serves to connect the School’s past, present and future.

At the same time, these endowed chairs will recognize 18 existing Jacobs School faculty who are at the very top of their fields. These faculty chair holders are setting the tone for the Jacobs School of tomorrow, advancing engineering and computer science research and education, to help resolve the world’s pressing issues.

“It’s extremely rare to have the opportunity to create and fill such a large number of endowed chairs all at once. I’d like to express my heartfelt thanks to Irwin and Joan and to everyone who has been part of this project, which will have high-impact results in perpetuity,” said Pisano.

The New Endowed Chairs and their Inaugural Chair Holders

The Jacobs School faculty who have thus far been named as inaugural holders of the new endowed chairs – and the names of the early faculty who are being honored – are listed below. The last few faculty appointments are pending.

Endowed Chairs at the Jacobs School

“As part of our mission to advance engineering and computer science to solve many of the world’s toughest challenges, I am working hard to increase the total number of endowed chair professorships we have here at the Jacobs School of Engineering,” said Pisano. “Irwin and Joan have led the way with their generous philanthropy and my goal is to inspire others to join them in contributing to our efforts to create additional endowed chairs at the Jacobs School.”

These 18 new endowed chairs complement the existing 50 endowed chairs held by Jacobs School of Engineering faculty at UC San Diego.

Learn more about the inaugural holders of the new endowed chairs here.

Shu Chien-Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering

Pedro Cabrales
Alan M. Schneider Endowed Chair in the Jacobs School of Engineering

Adam Engler
Kenneth Bowles Endowed Chair in the Jacobs School of Engineering

Jeff Hasty
Paul A. Libby Endowed Chair in the Jacobs School of Engineering
(Hasty also holds an appointment in the Department of Molecular Biology in the School of Biological Sciences)

Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering

David Fenning
Francine Berman Endowed Chair in the Jacobs School of Engineering