Winter 2016

Stanford University announced today the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, a graduate-level scholarship to prepare a new generation of global leaders with the skills to address the increasingly complex challenges facing the world.

The program is named for alumnus Philip H. Knight, MBA '62, philanthropist, American businessman and co-founder of Nike Inc., who is contributing $400 million, and Stanford's outgoing 10th President John L. Hennessy. The program builds on Stanford's preeminent position in higher education, with seven globally ranked multidisciplinary graduate schools that foster service, collaboration, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Ambitious in scope and scale, Knight-Hennessy Scholars will annually admit 100 high-achieving students with demonstrated leadership and civic commitment, who are nominated by their undergraduate universities. The goal is to select students from a wide range of backgrounds and nationalities. Upon admittance to Stanford's graduate programs, scholars will receive funding for three years to pursue master's or doctorate level degrees, or professional programs along with education in leadership, innovation and other curricula designed to develop scholars' capacity to lead ambitious change in a complex world.

"We wanted to create something enduring, that would be unlike anything else currently available to the world's brightest minds, and that would make the biggest impact possible toward solving global challenges affecting the environment, health, education and human rights," said Stanford President John Hennessy, who will serve as the program's inaugural director after stepping down from his current role as president. "We will bring together outstanding, courageous scholars to benefit from Stanford's innovative educational environment, who then go on to lead governments, businesses, nonprofits and other complex organizations and develop creative solutions to effect positive change."

With a $750 million endowment, the Knight-Hennessy Scholars will be the largest fully endowed scholarship program in the world. More than 80 percent of the endowment will directly support the scholars, fully funding their graduate education and living expenses. The program represents the largest single increase in student financial aid in Stanford's history. The scale of funding for the Knight-Hennessy Scholars will ensure continuity for generations to come.

A faculty advisory committee will help guide admission and curriculum criteria that will be available in the winter of 2017. Stanford will begin accepting applications from prospective scholars - students who have completed at least three years of undergraduate education - in summer 2017 and admit its first scholars for fall 2018.

Knight-Hennessy Scholars integrates the best aspects of other distinguished scholarship programs, but goes beyond them to offer a diverse, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary education that is a hallmark of Stanford. Ranked among the top five in the world, Stanford's seven graduate and professional schools in which scholars will enroll include law; business; medicine; engineering; humanities and sciences; education; and Earth, energy and environmental sciences. Scholars pursuing PhD or MD degrees will have the option to receive funding beyond three years.

The scholars will benefit from Stanford's location in the innovation center of the world, with additional courses in design thinking, innovation and entrepreneurship. Knight-Hennessy Scholars will also be exposed to leadership training and development, residential experiences, immersive educational opportunities, additional degree opportunities focused on public policy and problem-solving at scale. A social startup fund will be created to seed nonprofit startups launched by Knight-Hennessy alumni.

The Knight-Hennessy Scholars program has strong support from the Stanford Board of Trustees and Stanford's next president.

"I greatly admire the vision and ambition of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars, which leverages the full breadth and scope of Stanford as a comprehensive research university. As the beneficiary of a Rhodes Scholarship, I can attest to the value of such programs to provide a broad base of knowledge and exposure to a dynamic, international network of peers," said Marc Tessier-Lavigne, who will succeed Hennessy as Stanford's 11th president on Sept. 1. "As incoming president, I'm looking forward to working closely with John as we develop, define and grow a program that will inspire leadership for the betterment of humanity."

Knight's founding gift to the Knight-Hennessy Scholars endowment is the largest cash gift from an individual to Stanford. Other gifts include a $100 million donation from Robert King, MBA '60, and his wife, Dorothy, and $50 million from Stanford Board of Trustees Chair Steven Denning, MBA '78, and his wife, Roberta, AB '75, MBA '78. In total, dozens of Stanford benefactors have given more than $700 million to support the program, more than 90 percent of the endowment goal.

Knight has long been a supporter of Stanford. In 2006, he made a major gift to Stanford Graduate School of Business and has provided substantial support for endowed professorships and Stanford Athletics. With this gift, Knight wanted to honor Hennessy's 16-year tenure leading Stanford and to fund an initiative of scope and scale at an institution where he was confident the graduates would go on to make a real difference.

"John and I dream of a future 20, 30 or 50 years from now, when thousands of graduates - who can think outside the box as skilled problem-solvers - will be working together for a more peaceful, habitable world," said Knight. "The Knight-Hennessy Scholars program is a fitting tribute to John, one of the great academic leaders of our time."

The $100 million gift from Robert King and his wife, Dorothy, will fund a cohort of scholars from less economically developed regions of the world. It will also support the King Global Leadership Program, a distinctive training and development curriculum in which all Knight-Hennessy Scholars will participate to complement their core degree studies.

"While we have seen great achievements in this century, future progress will depend upon our ability to tackle issues such as global poverty. By identifying rising leaders from around the world and exposing them to real-life challenges, the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program will equip scholars to lead ambitious change," said King.

Steven Denning and his wife, Roberta, have provided a gift of $50 million to construct Denning House in the heart of the Stanford campus, a building that will become the convening hub for the new community of Knight-Hennessy Scholars. The 300 Knight-Hennessy Scholars will be housed and integrated within the Stanford graduate community of 9,000 students.

"The Board of Trustees unanimously endorsed the Knight-Hennessy Scholarship and is excited about its potential. Stanford instills in its students an emphasis on interdisciplinary education, innovation, creative problem solving and entrepreneurial thinking. Knight-Hennessy Scholars will benefit from that embedded culture, and in turn, they will enrich the Stanford community, and ultimately, the world," said Denning.

Jeff Wachtel, who has served as chief of staff to Hennessy throughout his presidential tenure, will be the Knight-Hennessy Scholars' first executive director.

Under Hennessy's leadership, Stanford has undertaken major new academic initiatives to address important global challenges of this century. Interdisciplinary teaching and research has expanded dramatically with the creation of new cross-school collaborative programs in human health, international affairs, environmental science and other areas.

Hennessy has also emphasized building stronger connections between the university, governments, business and nonprofit organizations, to help facilitate the transfer of university discoveries and knowledge more rapidly to the benefit of all of society. Such knowledge transfer was the original emphasis of Jane and Leland Stanford when they founded the university, which celebrates its 125th anniversary this year.

Further information about the Knight-Hennessy Scholars is available online at knight-hennessy.stanford.edu.

Spring 2016

Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) has received a $10 million gift to support research, scholarship and innovation in educational technology.

The donation from Angela Nomellini and Ken Olivier, alumni and longtime supporters of Stanford, will enable researchers to pursue projects that leverage educational technology to advance knowledge, support effective teaching and create learning opportunities for students, families and communities.

"Technology can disrupt the status quo, or it can increase the efficiency of enforcing the status quo," said GSE Dean Daniel Schwartz. "It's critical that we stay ahead of the trends, find new ways to solve problems and investigate what works best for effective teaching and learning. Ken and Angela's generous gift accelerates Stanford's efforts in this transformational, and fairly new, area of education."

Already, the gift has endowed a faculty chair—the Nomellini & Olivier Professorship of Educational Technology, given to Schwartz before he was named dean—and it is supporting a new initiative focused on equity, led by Professors Brigid Barron and Janet Carlson—that launched this spring.

Technology as change agent

"Ken and I believe that if done right, technology can be a real force in moving education forward," said Nomellini, '75. "Stanford is the top education school and has Silicon Valley as its backyard. It's the perfect confluence of education and technology, and we believe, the perfect place for real achievement to be made."

Nomellini said she and her husband were inspired to invest in educational technology after watching their younger son learn to read by playing a computer game. "Right now, personalized learning is grabbing attention, but what do we know about it? And iPads are being used in nearly every school but to what effect? There is also so much to know about technology use out of school, and that needs to be explored."

Nomellini and Olivier, '74, have long been committed to education and to Stanford. Nomellini now chairs the GSE advisory council and is a member of the Stanford New Schools board. Olivier, the former CEO and chairman of Dodge & Cox, is currently serving on the boards of the Stanford Management Company, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Freeman Spogli Institute. He is also on the Stanford Board of Trustees.

Technology for equity

Nomellini said technology also holds promise to help close achievement gaps in education, and a focus on equity and diversity was central to any investment in educational technology.

Questions such as how technology can benefit traditionally underserved communities and how teachers can incorporate technology in the classroom are among those to be addressed by TELOS: Technology for Equity in Learning Opportunities, an innovation hub that was launched this spring thanks to the Nomellini and Olivier gift.

On March 28, the first night of a nine-week seminar series sponsored by TELOS in partnership with Digital Promise and Silicon Valley Education Fund, scholars from University of California, Berkeley and University of Texas, Austin gathered at Stanford. More than 100 people attended to hear about how media and technology is used by students across race and income, what challenges schools face and how curriculum designs can advance equity in the classroom.

Barron introduced the session by connecting the TELOS initiative to the broader national conversation about the intersection of equity and technology with a focus on opportunities for catalyzing learning across home, school and community settings.

"This is an exciting collaborative adventure because of the opportunity to examine equity and learning from multiple perspectives," said Carlson, who is the director of Stanford's Center to Support Excellence in Teaching.

Carlson explained that the word telos comes from the Greek and means an ultimate object or aim. "And that's how we are approaching this initiative - with the intention of creating more equitable learning opportunities for all as an ultimate aim," she said.

Although in its early stages, TELOS has outlined four goals that guide its work: to catalyze collaborative research efforts; shape discourse about technology, equity and learning; prepare K-12 education leaders and teachers to be wise consumers and implementers of technology; and facilitate the design, building, testing and scaling of technology for learning.

"We are creating a constellation of activities to inspire innovative activities that will advance the uses of technology for learning to support equity and excellence in education," Barron said.

The seminar series is one of the first efforts by the initiative. The program also plans to fund collaborative research projects proposed by students and faculty.

Summer 2016

Stanford freshmen received free bicycle helmets when they arrived on campus in the fall of 2016, thanks to a gift from two Stanford parents committed to increasing the safety of bike riding on campus.

Russell Siegelman, a Stanford parent who also lectures in the Graduate School of Business, is an avid cyclist who has suffered brain trauma and experienced a catastrophic bike accident. As a result, he and his wife, Beth, have become advocates for wearing bike helmets. They decided to give away helmets to an estimated 1,800 new students to create change in the bicycle culture on campus by making wearing helmets the norm.

In talks with his son, students, and others, Siegelman learned that young adults often forgo wearing helmets because, among other reasons, they worry that doing so is "uncool." At Stanford, only an estimated 20 percent of undergraduate students report wearing helmets when pedaling to and from classes and events.

Bicycle friendly campus

There are about 13,000 bikes on the Stanford campus each day. Stanford is considered a bicycle friendly campus with 12 miles of bike lanes and more than 19,000 bike parking spaces. The university has been designated a Platinum Level Bicycle Friendly University by the League of American Bicyclists.

Still, despite the university's myriad of programs, crashes happen—626 over the past 10 years—some with unfortunate consequences. So, to help the university better instill safe riding habits among undergraduate students, the Siegelmans partnered with Ariadne Scott, the Stanford bicycle program coordinator, to make wearing bicycle helmets the norm. The helmets new students will receive at New Student Orientation in September are white with a red Stanford "S" with tree emblazoned on the side.

The helmets are the same as those worn by Cardinal intercollegiate athletes for the past year. The Department of Athletics, working with a supportive donor, distributed bike helmets to its 900 athletes, some of whom were required to wear them by coaches. The helmets were designed by the student athletes themselves, according to Patrick Dunkley, deputy athletic director.

"In part, our objective was increasing safety for student athletes and instilling in them good riding habits," he said. "But we were also hoping our athletes would be seen as role models by other students."

To some degree, Dunkley said the specially designed helmets have changed the habits of student athletes. But changing the habits of an entire campus may be more challenging.

"Beth and I hope that by providing students free, cool bike helmets that we can bring about a change in the helmet-wearing culture at Stanford," Siegelman said. "Changing behavior is hard. Most students probably already know that it is safe and sensible to wear a helmet, but most still don't wear one."

Scott, whose office promotes bike use and safety university-wide, said that statistics cited by Stanford trauma surgeons suggest 98 percent of the people who suffer head injuries from bicycle accidents were not wearing a helmet. Wearing a helmet, on the other hand, reduces the risk of head injury by 50 percent, according to statistics from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Feeling invincible

The challenge, Scott said, is that college-age students see themselves as invincible. As a result, they often engage in such dangerous behavior as ignoring stop signs, texting or eating while riding, traveling without a light after dark and having both ears covered with music earbuds. Stanford surveys show that students complain helmets flatten their hair and that they believe they are good riders and will be able to avoid a crash.

Siegelman knows better.

"I had an accident and hit the pavement," Siegelman said. "I was by myself, and there was no car involved. I just got stung by a bee, took one hand off of the handle bar and a fraction of a second later I was on the ground. I had no idea what happened—it was over so fast. My head directly hit the road and it cracked my helmet. I kept that helmet to show my kids. If I had not had a helmet on I am sure my life would have changed."

The accident reminded Siegelman of his own brain surgery unrelated to biking.

"I was in rehab for months after," he said. "In the rehab clinic, I met people who had traumatic brain injuries from bikes and other accidents, and I saw how painful and destructive these can be. A broken bone is one thing. But when your brain is injured, it potentially—and often—changes you permanently."

He added, "Not wearing a helmet when riding a bike is insane. Beth and I realize that others who have not experienced brain injuries or bike accidents may not realize how serious not wearing a helmet is. We hope that students come to know that they should always wear a helmet when biking. No questions asked, no excuses given."

Spring 2016

"Americans generally think of themselves as exceptional only in a positive sense," says Francis Fukuyama. But "other democracies around the world in recent years have actually been working better than the United States in a lot of respects."

Thanks to a new gift by R. Bruce Mosbacher, '76, JD '79, and Nancy Ditz Mosbacher, '76, Stanford is expanding its work on issues of good governance around the world.

In spring 2016, the Mosbachers made a $5 million gift to Stanford University to endow the directorship of Stanford's Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). CDDRL is one of six research centers at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), Stanford's premier research institute for the study of international issues. The Mosbacher Directorship at CDDRL is the first endowed directorship among FSI's centers.

"Democracy is facing challenging circumstances around the globe," Mr. Mosbacher explains. "The education and training of policy-driven leaders has never been more critically needed." Since 2002, CDDRL has collaborated with academics, policymakers, and practitioners around the world to understand how countries can overcome poverty, instability, and abusive rule to become prosperous, just, democratic, and well-governed states. 

"That [the Mosbacher Directorship] would be filled by Professor Fukuyama was a final and convincing factor in our consideration," says Mr. Mosbacher. Prof. Fukuyama, the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at FSI and a world-renowned political theorist, recently published a two-volume work on political order and decay that has become, in the words of FSI senior fellow and former CDDRL director Larry Diamond, "a global phenomenon."

Prof. Fukuyama, who describes the Mosbachers' gift as transformative, has two priorities for his directorship: developing new ideas for effective political governance, and collaborating with practitioners to support on-the-ground implementation. His goal, he says, is "to bring actual change in improving the quality of democratic politics around the world."

Two unique CDDRL programs will help accomplish this goal. The Draper Hills Summer Fellows Program draws mid-career professionals to Stanford from all over the developing world for a three-week program of networking and academic training, while the Leadership Academy for Development (LAD) partners with institutions in developing countries to equip public officials with the tools they need to overcome context-specific barriers to policy change.

"A lot of people who have gone through these programs have gone on to play important leadership roles in furthering democratic governance in many different countries," says Prof. Fukuyama, who brought LAD to Stanford when he joined the faculty nearly seven years ago. For example, Laura Alonso, a 2012 Draper Hills Fellow, now leads Argentina's anti-corruption office, while other CDDRL alums work to improve democracy in Ukraine, Georgia, and elsewhere.

Closer to home, another consideration played into the Mosbachers' gift. Their son, Jack, '12, is a graduate of CDDRL's Fisher Family Undergraduate Honors Program, won the center's outstanding thesis award, and worked closely with Prof. Diamond, his mentor, for several years as an FSI research associate. The relationship between the Mosbachers and Diamond continues to this day.

"They're an amazingly close family," Prof. Diamond says. "If you want a model of a truly sweet, loving family, it's hard to look further than the Mosbachers."

Both Prof. Diamond and Prof. Fukuyama point out that the Mosbachers' gift is particularly helpful because it will provide long-term funding for CDDRL. The Mosbachers have consistently and discreetly supported scholarship and health care initiatives at Stanford for decades. The Mosbacher Directorship is their first public gift.

"We've always been private about our charitable activities," Mrs. Mosbacher says. "While initially reluctant to make a public, or named gift, we are hoping that we might inspire others to find a special connection at Stanford to support."

"It's a reflection of the quality of CDDRL's scholarship that the Mosbachers have been moved to make such a generous and public gift," says FSI Director Michael McFaul. "Their support ensures that our scholars can continue doing work that is critical to understanding and addressing the most important global problems of our time."

The Mosbachers' gift arrives at a perfect time. After years of building a strong and unique program, CDDRL now has, in Prof. Diamond's words, "a lot of connections with governments, organizations, agencies, and networks that can directly affect public policy and development practice" in dozens of countries around the world.

"Our family has been blessed by our association with Stanford.  We are grateful for the opportunity to be of service and support to it," Mr. Mosbacher says.

Fall 2016

After forgoing construction of new undergraduate residences for several decades, Stanford has now opened three in just the past two years.

Students returning to campus will discover Meier and Norcliffe halls in the historic Lagunita Court complex on Santa Teresa Street. Both are four-class, co-ed residences and include single rooms, two-room doubles and traditional double rooms. They will each house 109 residents, and each will have its own lounge, kitchenette, computer rooms and common areas.

The opening of Meier and Norcliffe follows the 2015 opening of Ng House, which is the humanities-themed house located in the Gerhard Casper Quad off Escondido Road. Prior to Ng House, which was named for the Ng family of Singapore, no undergraduate residences had been added to the Stanford campus for about 20 years.

The two newest residence halls were built to complement the existing Mediterranean-inspired architecture of the Lagunita Court complex, which was constructed in the 1930s and renovated in 1998. The court includes Adelfa, Eucalipto, Granada, Naranja and Ujamaa houses, as well as a dining commons.

A beautiful fit

“Meier Hall and Norcliffe Hall fit in so beautifully with the older houses, both indoors and out,” said Rodger Whitney, executive director of Residential & Dining Enterprises (R&DE) Student Housing and chief housing officer.

Student feedback was key to integrating special features in the residence halls, including library/gathering spaces at the main entrance, main lounges with attached kitchenettes and outdoor gathering spaces, art/project spaces, seminar rooms, state-of-the-art multimedia rooms, and music rooms, Whitney said. Both halls are blanketed with wireless technology, and feature projectors and large screens in the main lounges, he added.

“We were very happy to include in the design of the buildings many smaller gathering spaces, called nooks or alcoves, to encourage student interaction,” he said. “Many of these types of spaces were included in Ng House, and feedback that Student Housing has received from students about them has been very positive.”

Whitney said it was important to R&DE, working with the University Architect/ Campus Planning & Design Office, the Department of Project Management, Residential Education, and Academic Computing, to include modern features while still retaining the distinctive architectural nature of Lagunita Court.

“We are so grateful to the generous donors and to our many university partners for helping us create these two beautiful and vibrant new homes where our students can live and learn and build community together,” said Shirley Everett, senior associate vice provost for R&DE.

The new halls also offer students more housing choices within Stanford’s already diverse residential system.

“Meier and Norcliffe offer us something that we haven’t had in a long time at Stanford – a true four-class house that is small and intimate,” said Deborah Golder, associate vice provost for student affairs and dean of residential education.

Both halls feature cottages for resident fellows, and new fellows already have been appointed by Residential Education to oversee the intellectual and cultural environments for students.

Bryan and Cheryl Brown have been appointed resident fellows in Meier Hall. Bryan Brown is associate dean of student affairs and associate professor at the Graduate School of Education, and Cheryl Brown is the associate director of the Program in African and African American Studies.

Jack and Nancy Kollmann will be resident fellows in Norcliffe Hall. Nancy Kollmann is a professor of history whose research focuses on modern Russia. Jack Kollmann is a lecturer at the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

Committed alumni

The houses are named to honor the service and contributions of alumni who have been key to the university’s success.

Meier Hall is named in honor of Linda and Tony Meier, who met at Stanford and graduated from the university in 1961 and 1957, respectively. Linda Meier is a former member of the Stanford Board of Trustees and the co-founder of the Cardinal Club. She has served as co-chair of the Centennial Campaign, vice chair for the Campaign for Undergraduate Education, and co-chair for The Stanford Challenge. In 2000, she was awarded the Degree of Uncommon Woman, Stanford’s highest volunteer honor.

Tony Meier, principal of The Meier Group, has been involved with the DAPER Investment Fund, the Stanford Alumni Association, The Stanford Challenge, and the advisory board to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. He also served as chair of the Athletic Board and as co-chair of his 50th undergraduate reunion campaign.

Meier Hall is the result of a gift in their honor from their children.

Norcliffe Hall was made possible by a gift from the Norcliffe Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in 1952 by an alumnus who served on the Board of Trustees.

The buildings were dedicated during private ceremonies in September 2016.

Fall 2016

Stanford will be one of three Bay Area universities—along with the University of California, San Francisco and the University of California, Berkeley—to participate in a new bioscience collaboration funded through a $600 million commitment by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan, MD, created the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative after the birth of their daughter in 2015. On Sept. 21, the Initiative announced plans for a broader focus on science, its second major initiative, alongside work to improve education for all students. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's goal is to cure, prevent or manage all diseases by the end of the century by accelerating basic science research. The Initiative seeks to support new ways of enabling scientists and engineers to work together to build new tools that will empower the whole scientific community and advance progress.

The new Bay Area research collaboration, called the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, is the first scientific investment by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. It will include a combination of research space focused on biotechnology tools development, grants and large-scale collaborative projects.

"The Biohub will be the sinew that ties together these three institutions in the Bay Area like never before," said Stephen Quake, PhD, Stanford professor of bioengineering and of applied physics, who will co-lead the Biohub with Joseph DeRisi, PhD, professor and chair of biochemistry and biophysics at UCSF.

A collaborative approach to research

The Biohub will be an independent research organization with two locations, a headquarters in the San Francisco Mission Bay district and an outstation at Stanford known as the Stanford Biohub. These hubs will establish shared biotechnology platforms and make them available to members of the collaborating universities.

"This initiative will dramatically improve our ability to conduct fundamental research at the intersection of biology and engineering that can lead to important applications for human health," said Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne, PhD, who is also a neuroscientist. "We are grateful for the investment by Mark and Priscilla in both sophisticated tools and an unprecedented Bay Area-wide university collaboration that will enable groundbreaking discovery."

Fall 2016

After standing empty for three decades, Old Chem, one of Stanford's historic and most beloved buildings, will reopen late this fall as the Sapp Center for Science Teaching and Learning. In recognition of the Sapp family's generous gift, Old Chem will be renamed for Shari and Rick Sapp, '78, and their family.

"The Sapp Center for Science Teaching and Learning preserves Stanford's venerable past while embracing its exciting future," says Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne. "In this historic building, students will engage with faculty to gain an exceptional foundation in science, participate in hands-on experimentation and collaborate across disciplines in a way that has become Stanford's hallmark in undergraduate education."

"The Sapp Center supports the School of Humanities and Sciences' mission to educate students and inspire tomorrow's discoveries," says Richard Saller, the Vernon R. and Lysbeth Warren Anderson Dean of the school.

"I'd like to thank President Emeritus John Hennessy for his vision in bringing back Old Chem as a center for undergraduate education," Saller says. "The Sapp Center will also anchor the future Biology Chemistry Quad and act as a physical and intellectual bridge to the university's other schools."

In addition to the Sapp family gift, support from alumni and friends has made it possible for Stanford to restore and renovate this century-old landmark. In early 2017, undergraduates and faculty will begin using its labs, classrooms, study areas, auditorium, lecture hall and library.

At capacity, more than 4,000 students a day will pass through the halls and classrooms of this iconic building, taking courses not only in chemistry and biology but also in art, history, statistics and economics. At its core, the Sapp Center will launch a new era for interdisciplinary science education at Stanford.

"Excellence in teaching lies at the heart of a Stanford education," says Rick Sapp. "An opportunity to transform the way future scientists, innovators and leaders think and learn is essential for our society to address the challenges experienced today and in the future. Interdisciplinary education, which bridges fields of knowledge and catalyzes the process of discovery, will serve as the foundation for the building's new role as a center of 21st-century learning.

"After languishing in the shadows of campus life for 30 years, Shari and I are pleased to return this historically significant building to the university community and to support its role as a nexus of educational innovation," he says.

Donor leadership and generosity

Rick Sapp's ties to Stanford reach back 40 years; he earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering in 1978. After earning an MBA in 1981 from the University of Pennsylvania, he launched a successful career with Goldman Sachs.

He spent most of his career at Goldman Sachs' London office, where he built and later headed the mergers and acquisitions and corporate advisory business for the firm's European, Middle Eastern and African regions. Since his retirement from Goldman Sachs in 2003, he has worked as a private investor based in Southern California.

Shari Sapp earned a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Colorado in 1984 and worked for investment firms in England, where the family lived for 17 years.

Winter 2017

William Bowes, Jr. '50, left a mark on Stanford, and not just as a key benefactor. 

"His vision of the future launched the Stanford Bio-X Fellowship Program in 2004," said Carla Shatz, the David Starr Jordan Director of Stanford Bio-X, Sapp Family Provostial Professor, and professor of biology and neurobiology. "Bill has now contributed to the training of over 200 young scientists—our future."

When he passed away late last year, Bowes was best known as a founding partner at U.S. Venture Partners, which invested in over 300 early-stage companies over 30 years. He also was a founding shareholder at Amgen, as well as its first chairman and treasurer.

But Stanford will remember him first and foremost as a pioneering philanthropist. 

His support for basic research and early career scientists included funding 134 Bio-X Bowes Fellows and dozens more who've been part of the wider Stanford Bio-X Fellowship Program, which for the first time allowed Stanford PhD and MD/PhD students to pursue research at the intersections of biology, medicine, engineering, and physical science.

"He wanted to be involved with the students," said Heideh Fattaey, the institute's executive director.

"He would regularly drive down from San Francisco to meet with the students and their faculty mentors to hear about their work and provide some advice—his vision for the interdisciplinary fellowship program has become an inspiration for many other programs across Stanford's campus and around the world. Bill was a pioneer in helping Bio-X educate the scientists of the future." 

Kate Montgomery, MS '11, PhD '15, was one of those young scientists. As a Bio-X Bowes Fellow from 2009 to 2012, Montgomery pushed the boundaries of pain management using optogenetics, a gene-therapy technique that allows scientists to activate signaling in cells in the body using light. Building on that idea, and working with Scott Delp, the James H. Clark Professor in the School of Engineering, Karl Deisseroth, the D. H. Chen Professor in the School of Medicine, and Ada Poon, an associate professor of electrical engineering, Montgomery helped develop tiny wirelessly powered lights that she used to target pain-sensing nerve cells in mice to block pain signals. 

Montgomery graduated in 2015 and is now the lead research and development scientist at Zebra Medical Technologies, whose technology grew out of Bio-X-funded research.

The most recent crop of Bio-X Bowes Fellows includes Avanti Shrikumar, PhD '20, a computer scientist focused on embryonic stem cells. As an embryo develops, those cells eventually become eyes, spleens, and every other sort of specialized tissue in our bodies. In theory, these embryonic cells could be used to treat any number of diseases or even to produce organs for the nearly 120,000 people in the United States alone who need a transplant—if researchers knew more about how they work. 

Shrikumar's hope is to develop new methods based on deep learning, a set of techniques related to artificial intelligence, to make sense of the growing body of data on stem cells. She's carrying out this work with Anshul Kundaje, an assistant professor of genetics and computer science, and Helen Blau, the Donald E. and Delia B. Baxter Foundation Professor in the School of Medicine.

Those are just two examples of Bowes's legacy. Other current fellows are using computer science and biophysics to tackle cancer, developing wearable robotics for people with spinal injuries and lost limbs, and chasing solutions to the emerging public-health threat of antibiotic resistance. 

Bill received a BA in economics from Stanford University in 1950 and an MBA from Harvard University. 

Bill was a founding member of the Interdisciplinary Biosciences Advisory Council, which later became the Bio-X Advisory Council. He also was president of the William K. Bowes, Jr., Foundation.

In addition to Bill's significant support of Stanford Bio-X, he also established the Ruth G. and William K. Bowes Professorship in the School of Engineering and helped launch the Stanford Engineering Venture Fund (SEVF), an investment partnership between Stanford, leading venture capitalists, and local tech companies. SEVF provided funds for fellowships, an entrepreneurship program, and buildings.

"Bill was a loyal, generous, and thoughtful donor to Stanford," Shatz said. "His contributions to Bio-X were key to its success." 

What Bowes helped start in 2004 will continue: Bio-X will announce the 2017 class of Bio-X Bowes Fellows on May 17. 

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford has received a gift of $50 million from Gordon and Betty Moore to deliver exceptional patient care and advance research for children with heart disease. This private donation from the Moores is the largest gift from an individual to Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford since the hospital's original founding gift from David and Lucile Packard.

In honor of this gift, Packard Children's internationally renowned Children's Heart Center will be named the Betty Irene Moore Children's Heart Center. The gift provides funding for clinical and research facilities, an endowment for the Center's highest strategic priorities, and endowed positions for faculty to lead specialized care and research.  

Gordon Moore is co-founder of Intel Corporation. He and his wife, Betty, are also founders of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, which works to create positive outcomes for future generations. They are long-time supporters of Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford and previously made gifts to the hospital's 521,000-square-foot expansion which is now nearing completion. 

The Moores were motivated to make this gift after a child in their family benefited from the care of the Children's Heart Center. "Our grandchild had life-saving surgery at the hospital, and we would like to help make sure the capability is there for others," said Gordon Moore.

"We are honored to have the Moores' visionary partnership as we strive every day to heal humanity through science and compassion, one child and family at a time," said Christopher Dawes, president and CEO of Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford. "The Betty Irene Moore Children's Heart Center will provide world-leading cardiac care to patients today, tomorrow, and for generations to come."

The Next Wave of Innovation and Discovery

Over the past 70 years, innovations developed by physicians, clinical researchers, engineers, and basic scientists have transformed the care of children with heart disease and made life-saving interventions not only possible but routine at hospitals like Packard Children's. New surgical techniques and medical therapies, some of which were developed at Stanford University School of Medicine and Packard Children's, have evolved and greatly improved outcomes for children with almost every type of congenital heart disease.

Heart defects that were once universally fatal can now be surgically improved. As patients born with heart disease survive longer, there are now more adults than children in the United States with congenital heart disease. However, further advancements are still needed to ensure a healthier future for patients, many of whom continue to face a compromised quality of life and require subsequent surgeries. 

"Surgical intervention can repair, but it rarely can truly cure," said renowned pediatric heart surgeon Frank Hanley, MD, who is also the Lawrence Crowley, MD, Endowed Professor in Child Health at Stanford University School of Medicine and executive director of the Betty Irene Moore Children's Heart Center. "Children who have received complex surgical intervention to repair a cardiac abnormality require careful monitoring and specialized care throughout their lifespan. Many of them face repeat hospitalizations and need subsequent interventions. We imagine a day when a child born with a poorly working aortic valve, rather than undergoing multiple open-heart operations throughout his lifetime, instead receives a replacement valve engineered from his own stem cells. Dr. and Mrs. Moore's gift comes at a critical juncture—enabling us to advance beyond surgical repair to the discovery of transformational treatments and interventions and ultimately, to true cures."

The center is renowned for its exceptional overall survival rate of 98 percent—even for patients with the most complex cardiac conditions. Beyond survival alone, the goal is now to ensure an excellent overall outcome—from normal brain function for even the most fragile patients, to the ability for children to perform well in school and to exercise and enjoy an active life into adulthood. At Packard Children's, physicians, nurses, and researchers are bolstering capabilities for diagnosing cardiac diseases using advanced imaging techniques long before babies are born. With prenatal diagnosis, the team can provide optimal planning for care at and shortly after birth, and treat some babies even before they are delivered. Furthermore, as more children survive with congenital heart disease, the team is now looking at lifespan care—bringing together the resources needed to provide comprehensive care to patients from prenatal diagnosis all the way through adulthood.

"Over the past 16 years, the Children's Heart Center has made a national and global impact on the field of pediatric heart disease," said Stephen Roth, MD, MPH, chief of pediatric cardiology and director of the Betty Irene Moore Children's Heart Center. "We are committed to providing babies and children with heart disease and their families with the happiest, healthiest lives possible, from the early identification of problems, to expert intervention, and finally to a lifetime of care and support."

"Dr. and Mrs. Moore's incredible gift will not only bolster our clinical capabilities for children and families receiving care now in the Betty Irene Moore Children's Heart Center, it will also accelerate basic and translational research by Stanford Medicine faculty and scientists to develop more precise techniques to predict, prevent, and cure," said Lloyd B. Minor, MD, the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine. "When it comes to achieving precision health, we must think as big as we can—not just about treating disease, but about making and keeping people healthy—and nowhere is this more true than in children."

In 2017, Packard Children's will complete its major expansion, becoming the most technologically advanced, family-friendly, and environmentally sustainable children's hospital in the nation. The Moores' gift creates an unprecedented opportunity for the Children's Heart Center to expand its state-of-the-art clinical and research facilities, train the future leaders of cardiovascular medicine and surgery, and improve the field of pediatric cardiology and pediatric cardiovascular surgery through innovative research. 

In the coming years, the Betty Irene Moore Children's Heart Center team will build a robust program in basic, clinical, and translational research aimed at improving the treatment and prevention of congenital and acquired heart conditions, including adult congenital heart disease. In addition, the Center will expand its clinical facilities, including a newly designed outpatient center, to deliver the best outcomes for every child. 

Packard Children's established the Children's Heart Center in 2001 as a center of excellence to focus more expertise and resources on congenital heart disease, the most common type of birth defect worldwide. Each year approximately 40,000 children in the United States are born with heart defects, and an additional 25,000 children develop some kind of acquired heart disease.

The Children's Heart Center has gained recognition as a national and international destination program for several highly-specialized surgical procedures. The Heart Center is also a full-service cardiology program that cares for patients with all forms of the most complex and challenging surgical and medical cardiovascular conditions. Under the leadership of Drs. Hanley and Roth, the center receives more than 25,000 patient visits annually and performs 80 to 90 percent of all cardiac surgical care for children in northern and central California. 

Spring 2017

A $3 million gift from Taube Philanthropies will support a collaboration between Stanford University School of Medicine and the Gladstone Institutes focused on research related to Huntington's disease.

The donation will support an innovative program with three leading medical research groups and, for the first time, will introduce gene editing and stem cell therapies to effect treatments and, eventually, a potential cure for Huntington's disease. Researchers Matthew Porteus, MD, PhD, associate professor of pediatrics at Stanford School of Medicine; Frank Longo, MD, PhD, professor of neurology at Stanford School of Medicine; and Steve Finkbeiner, MD, PhD, of the Gladstone Institutes' Taube-Koret Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, will collaborate with clinical efforts at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center, under the direction of Bruce Miller, MD, PhD. Harvey Cohen, MD, PhD, professor of pediatrics at Stanford School of Medicine, organized the team of researchers, and Dr. Porteus will lead the collaborative effort.

"Huntington's disease is a cruel genetic disorder that robs its victims of physical and mental control," said Tad Taube, founder and chairman of Taube Philanthropies. "The time and research that Stanford, UCSF, and Gladstone Institutes have committed to this cause is remarkable. I am proud to play a contributing role in the important research being conducted at these institutions, and look forward to results that have the potential to transform the lives of Huntington's disease patients."

Huntington's disease is a genetic neurodegenerative disease that causes the progressive breakdown of nerve cells in the brain. It deteriorates a person's physical and mental abilities, eventually leading to premature death. There is no cure or approved drugs to slow the progression of the disorder. Huntington's disease belongs to a family of neurodegenerative diseases that includes Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and ALS. Today, there are approximately 30,000 symptomatic Americans and more than 200,000 at-risk of inheriting the disease.

"We have made considerable progress in advancing drug therapy developments for patients with neurodegenerative diseases since Taube Philanthropies started supporting my research, nearly a decade ago," Finkbeiner said. "With this renewed commitment and concerted approach focusing on Huntington's disease, I am optimistic that we will continue advancing toward our research goals."

The $3 million donation is a continuation of Taube Philanthropies' dedication to finding treatments and cures for neurodegenerative diseases. Over the last 12 years, the organization has donated over $5 million to Gladstone Institutes and $1 million to the Stanford University School of Medicine for related research. Taube Philanthropies started funding Huntington's disease research under the direction of Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner at UCSF's department of neurology.

"We have been working to develop similar therapies for neurodegenerative diseases for many years with some promising results," Porteus said. "Employing the latest technology, including CRISPR/Cas9-a powerful new tool that enables scientists to make precise genome edits-I believe we have the opportunity to make great strides toward developing a therapy specifically for Huntington's disease."

The gift will be distributed to the researchers in annual increments through 2021 to account for the long-term process of translating scientific insights into clinical trials and applications. The collaborative research project will execute a multi-year program to develop genetic therapy for the disease. Stanford is engaged in cutting-edge stem cell research and hopes to begin conducting clinical trials with Huntington's patients soon.

"Having studied Alzheimer's for many years, I am all too familiar with the devastating effects of neurodegenerative diseases," Longo said. "As researchers with different area specialties convene for this unique joint project, I am optimistic about our capacity to come even closer to finding treatments and cures for these degenerative conditions."

Until recently, there was a lack of substantive funding for meaningful research into Huntington's disease. Due to the progress made in the fields of these renowned researchers, significant new federal funding has become available and major pharmaceutical companies have started funding research to develop possible medications. However, collaborative efforts still rely on contributions from generous individuals and private foundations.

Spring 2017

Stanford University has announced the establishment of the new Mary M. and Sash A. Spencer Center for Vision Research thanks to a generous gift pledged by Mary Spencer in honor of her late husband, Sash. The new center, at the renowned Byers Eye Institute, will support innovative vision research and interdisciplinary collaborations across the Stanford campus.

The Promise of Connecting Research to Care

The new Mary M. and Sash A. Spencer Center for Vision Research at Stanford is at the heart of an ambitious vision for advancing research and creating new diagnostics and therapeutics that will change patient care. The goal of the center is to develop new cures and treatments for the most challenging eye diseases, such as macular degeneration and glaucoma, which impact the lives of millions of people—often leaving them partially or wholly without sight. The center will be at the forefront of the search for new diagnostics and therapies, both to prevent vision loss and to restore sight, while offering patients access to the latest research, technologies, clinical trials, and treatments. It will build on the Byers Eye Institute's reputation for innovation and patient-centered care.

Lloyd B. Minor, the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the School of Medicine, said, "We are optimistic that with the establishment of this new center, significant advances in vision science will be translated into improved patient care, transforming the lives of millions suffering from eye disease the world over." Of Mary Spencer's gift he adds, "This will create a remarkable legacy for Sash and Mary Spencer for generations to come. We are incredibly grateful for her trust and generosity."

According to Jeffrey Goldberg, MD, PhD, Stanford's chair of ophthalmology and director of the new center, "Many diseases of the eye still lack clear and effective methods of prevention, treatment, or cure. Although much research is underway, bridging the chasm from the lab to clinical testing and ultimately to proven therapies remains the core challenge to making real progress." He adds, "Our goal for this new center is to bring together teams of interdisciplinary experts in genetics, imaging, stem cell and neurobiology with leaders in vision science. By harnessing the combined talents and energy available at Stanford and beyond, we can uncover novel therapies and bring them more rapidly to human trials—to real patients—so that others can benefit in the nearer term." The center will also work towards the development of new diagnostics and methods to help predict eye diseases before they occur, leading to preventative and more personalized care—the foundation of Stanford's focus on Precision Health.

A Legacy of Excellence

Mary Spencer, who suffers from the early effects of macular degeneration herself, believes this new center at Stanford will bring the brightest scientists together at the right place to make a lasting impact on the field of vision science. With the help of her philanthropic commitment, she hopes to witness in her lifetime the discovery of treatments for some of the worst eye diseases and also to create a legacy of excellence that honors her late husband's memory. Dr. Goldberg and the early promise shown by his work using magnetic nanoparticles to promote regenerative therapies for the eye was a major factor in Spencer's decision to support the establishment of the new research center. "I hope that Jeff's vision for this center will be realized and it will become a place where leading vision scientists from across the country and the world will come together and share their knowledge," she said.

Summer 2017

The Stanford Cancer Institute has received a $10 million gift from Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jeffrey Rothschild and his wife, Marieke, to advance research in cancer cell therapy, which is considered the vanguard of cancer treatment today.

The gift launches the Stanford Center for Cancer Cell Therapy, which will support research and clinical trials of treatments that use the power of the patients’ own immune system to attack and kill tumor cells.

“We have an appetite for risk,” Marieke Rothschild said. “We ask the question, ‘What can really yield results? What are the projects that are not being funded? Where, with a relatively small amount of funding, can you have impact?’”

The Center for Cancer Cell Therapy was established to directly benefit patients and spur innovation in a field that is considered one of the frontiers in cancer care.

The center will be led by Crystal Mackall, MD, professor of pediatrics and of medicine and one of the pioneers in the field of cancer cell therapy. Mackall’s work has focused on CAR T cells, immune cells engineered to express receptors that lock onto and destroy malignant cells. While at the National Cancer Institute, she led several clinical trials using these modified T cells to treat children with leukemia whose condition hadn’t improved with other therapies. The response rates were remarkable, with 70 to 90 percent of children improving with a single treatment. A variation on this treatment, now being tested in young patients at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, was recommended for approval by a Food and Drug Administration panel July 12 and could be the first CAR T cell therapy to reach the market.

‘Potentially transformational’

“I think it has the potential to be highly impactful. That’s why I’m committing myself to it,” Mackall said. “If we can optimize the functioning of these cells, they have the potential to effectively kill an established cancer and to remain functional for years after one infusion. That’s the goal—to have a product that will work on behalf of the patient. When optimized, they could remain active for months or years, preventing a recurrence of cancer. So for me, it’s potentially transformational.”

Among the challenges of these therapies is that they work for some patients but not others, and aren’t effective in treating all types of cancers. Scientists at Stanford Medicine and elsewhere are looking at ways to apply the therapies more broadly and to minimize potential side effects of the treatment.

“This is an incredibly promising approach to immunotherapy,” said Beverly Mitchell, MD, professor of medicine and director of the Stanford Cancer Institute. “I think it has to overcome some problems, one of which is that there is occasional toxicity. And many solid tumors have yet to respond, so there is a lot of research that needs to be done to bring it to the broadest spectrum of patients. I have great confidence that it will become the mainstay of treatment for leukemias and lymphomas and will then extend into solid tumors, including brain cancers and sarcoma. I think it’s the next frontier.”

She said the Rothschild gift will enable Stanford Medicine researchers to move forward with a series of clinical trials using variations of CAR T cells in different types of cancers. Until this point, these trials at Stanford have been industry-sponsored; the new gift will support the first investigator-initiated trial using a therapy that Mackall developed in her lab. Expected to begin in August, this trial may enroll up to 50 children and adults with B-cell leukemias and lymphomas, using a CAR T cell that involves a “double-punch,” simultaneously targeting the CD22 and CD19 antigens on cancer cells, Mackall said. Previous therapies have been directed at the CD19 antigen alone and the CD22 antigen alone, but over time, some patients lose these targets and no longer respond to the treatment, she said. In 2018, trials will expand to children and adults with brain tumors and children with solid tumors, such as neuroblastoma and osteosarcoma, she said.

David Miklos, MD, associate professor of medicine and specialist in bone marrow transplantation, will co-direct the new center, which includes many other Stanford Medicine physician-scientists who care for both adults and children with cancer. With the Rothschilds’ support, Stanford also will recruit new faculty in cancer immunotherapy to join the effort.

The new center is expected to complement the work of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at Stanford, which Mackall directs. The institute brings together six academic medical centers nationwide working collaboratively to advance the field.

As for the Rothschilds, they say their goal is to contribute to knowledge in the field.

“We just hope to be able to affect things in a positive way—have some impact,” Jeffrey Rothschild said. “That’s all you ever can hope for.”

Summer 2017

Stanford announced Wednesday that its defensive backs coaching position has been endowed by a gift from George '69 and Debra Couch.

"I am blessed beyond words for the Couch family's extraordinary generosity, and the confidence it reflects in our football program," said Duane Akina, Stanford's first Couch Family Defensive Backs Coach. "It will enable us to continue our tradition of providing leadership and development for our student-athletes to achieve success on the field and in the classroom."

A 37-year coaching veteran, Akina joined the Stanford staff in 2014. The 2017 season marks his fourth on the Farm.

"We are very grateful to the Couch family for their generosity," said Bradford M. Freeman Director of Football David Shaw. "I am humbled and very pleased that our success on the field, success in the classroom, and the way we represent Stanford University can inspire feelings of joy from our alumni. We are honored to have to the Couch name permanently associated with our program, and we will work to make them proud of what we do on and off the field."

George Couch earned his bachelor's degree in economics from Stanford. Following his time at Stanford, the avid golfer attended business school at Harvard and has been a football season ticket holder for more than 25 years. Couch and his family have been very supportive of several non-profits in the Monterey and Bay areas. George is the chairman and president of Couch Distributing Company, the largest independent beverage distributor in California's Central Coast.

"Stanford Athletics, and the tremendous success of the football program in particular, has been for me a source of great excitement and many thrills," Couch said. "As a Stanford graduate, I am especially proud of the high integrity of our programs and the unparalleled quality of our student-athletes.

"Coach Shaw and his staff have taken our football program beyond my wildest expectations. I could think of no better way to say thanks for the great memories and the exciting future than to make this commitment. Stanford, after all, played an important role in my family's ability to create this endowment. We are very proud to have Duane Akina be the first person in this role."

Akina has coached three Thorpe Award winners, six Thorpe finalists and 33 defensive backs who have played in the NFL—including six Pro Bowlers, eight Super Bowl participants and 12 All-Americans. Akina coached in 23 bowl games.

Akina's secondary has enjoyed success at Stanford. In 2016, it included two fifth-year senior safeties who provided the cornerstone of a deep and athletic unit. All-Pac-12 honorable mention safety Dallas Lloyd accounted for a team-high five of Stanford's 14 interceptions, including a pair to help secure Stanford's Sun Bowl win over North Carolina. Lloyd's total ranked 13th nationally and second among Pac-12 defenders. He was joined on the All-Pac-12 team by honorable mention selections Quenton Meeks and Justin Reid.

Anchored by All-Pac-12 second team defensive back Ronnie Harris, Akina's secondary in 2015 included starting safeties Kodi Whitfield and Lloyd, who each transitioned from offense. The Cardinal posted the league's fifth-best passing efficiency defense (123.96) and third-best total defense (368.3). Stanford's secondary allowed only 6.76 yards/pass attempt while picking off eight, led by Meeks' team-best three interceptions. Meeks added a pick-six in the Rose Bowl win over Iowa.

In Akina's first season in 2014, Stanford finished second nationally in scoring defense and eighth in passing defense. The Cardinal allowed only one passing score in nine games, including a stretch of five with zero. Stanford forced the same number of interceptions as passing touchdowns allowed (12). Strong safety Jordan Richards led the Cardinal with three interceptions and forced three fumbles, and was awarded the 2014 National Football Foundation's Scholar-Athlete Award. Richards was a first team All-Pac-12 selection and finished his career with nine interceptions.

Akina came to Stanford from Texas, where he spent 13 seasons on defense while developing an impressive number of NFL defensive backs. Akina's secondary helped Texas rank among the nation's top 10 in pass defense six times and featured consecutive Thorpe Award winners Michael Huff (2005) and Aaron Ross (2006) to go along with finalists in Earl Thomas (2009) and Quentin Jammer (2001) and 14 first team All-Big 12 picks.

Akina earned titles of assistant head coach and co-defensive coordinator in Austin.

Prior to Texas, Akina spent 14 years at Arizona (1987–2000). He started as the defensive backs coach and was named associate head coach before spending four years as the offensive coordinator. He resumed defensive coordinator duties shortly before his departure.

Akina helped guide Arizona's famed "Desert Swarm" defense, one of the nation's most aggressive and productive groups. He coached 1990 Jim Thorpe Award winner Darryll Lewis and finalist Chris McAlister. Lewis went on to a 10-year NFL career and was a Pro Bowler for the San Diego Chargers. McAlister earned a spot in the 2004 Pro Bowl and was a member of the 2000 Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens.

Akina also spent five years at Hawaii (1981–85) following a graduate assistant role at his alma mater, Washington (1979–80).

His one season at the professional level came in 1986 when he served as the defensive backs coach for Calgary in the Canadian Football League.

A native of Hawaii, Akina graduated from Washington in 1979. He earned three letters as a quarterback for the Huskies.

Akina and his wife, Donna, have five children—Kainoa, Keoni, Dionicia, Alli and Kamalii.

Fall 2017

You may not think of volunteering as a privilege, but working for free, no matter how helpful to others, is not always an option. Students struggling to cover living expenses often can't benefit from the profound learning experience of volunteer work—or dedicate their time and talents for the greater good. Several alumni and friends are working to change that at Stanford. 

Two alumni couples—Jane McConnell, '85, and TJ Heyman, '81, MBA '85, and Priscilla and Jamie Halper, '81 (Parents '15, '17, '20, '21)—have made key gifts that will ensure that all Stanford students can afford to volunteer.  

Serving locally 

"We're excited to see public service become part of the ethos of Stanford, just as much as world-class academics and athletics," says Jane McConnell. 

Last year, she and her husband, TJ Heyman, made a $1 million gift to create the Education Achievement Fellowship Fund at Stanford, one option among a growing menu of Cardinal Quarter service opportunities. Stanford launched Cardinal Service in 2015 with the intent of using public service to transform lives—through coursework, full-time global service, sustained civic engagement, and support to explore public interest careers. With new Cardinal Quarters like this one, more students have a chance to be fully immersed in volunteer efforts during the summer. 

McConnell has long been an advocate for programs that close the education achievement gap in the United States. This gift combines a cause that she feels passionate about with Heyman's support for Stanford's Haas Center for Public Service, which is the hub of Cardinal Service. Heyman serves on the Haas Center National Advisory Board.

"It is so fulfilling for us to be able to make a gift to Stanford while at the same time making a difference in our own backyard," McConnell says.

By Natalie Jabbar
Winter 2017

Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences has received an $800,000 gift from distinguished engineers and entrepreneurs Dr. Rouzbeh Yassini-Fard and Anousheh Ansari to establish a graduate fellowship in honor of mathematics professor Maryam Mirzakhani. A specialist in theoretical mathematics, Mirzakhani was the first and to-date only female winner of the prestigious Fields Medal—considered the Nobel Prize of mathematics; she died of breast cancer in July at the age of 40.

The Maryam Mirzakhani Graduate Fellowship will support graduate students in the Department of Mathematics. Ansari and Yassini's commitment will earn $400,000 in matching funds from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to create a $1.2 million endowed fund.

As fellow Iranian-Americans, Yassini and Ansari said that Mirzakhani was an inspiration to them and an embodiment of the contributions that the Iranian community has made globally throughout history across the humanities, arts, and sciences. Mirzakhani was born in Tehran and studied at Sharif University before attending Harvard for her graduate studies.

"Maryam's contributions to mathematics are as significant as those of Khwarizmi's groundbreaking innovations as the father of algebra more than 12 centuries ago," says Yassini. "Anousheh and I are creating this fellowship to illuminate her extraordinary contribution to this arc of history."

The Maryam Mirzakhani Graduate Fellowship will help attract and support the next generation of leaders in mathematics. The unpredictability of government funding in the natural sciences makes these fellowships more important than ever, says professor Eleny Ionel, the chair of Stanford's Department of Mathematics.

"Graduate students are the future," she says. "It's really essential to have fellowships like this to bring talented students to Stanford to follow their dreams and passions."

Rouzbeh Yassini is internationally known as the "father of the cable modem" for his pioneering work inventing internet connectivity via cable TV, forever changing the broadband industry.

Anousheh Ansari is the co-founder and CEO of Prodea, a leading IoT (Internet of Things) service delivery platform, and is both the first Iranian individual and the first self-funded woman to travel to space.

"Anousheh and I established this fellowship because we didn't want Maryam's passing away so young to mean that she—and her legacy—would go away," says Yassini. "I'm hoping this fellowship motivates many young people, especially other female mathematicians, to pursue the field and to carry out innovative research—and that people are inspired to be as humble and as globally impactful as Maryam was."

New Structures Enhance
Educational Farm Program

Terry Huffington Barn and Welch Family Kitchen support the farm's academic mission

Winter 2018

Guests gathered at the O'Donohue Family Stanford Educational Farm on November 1, 2017, to dedicate two new spaces for teaching, learning, and gathering: the Terry Huffington Barn and the Welch Family Kitchen.

The farm embodies Stanford Earth's commitment to addressing "big challenges" related to climate, energy, food, and water, said Pamela Matson, the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor in Environmental Studies, presiding over the event on the last day of her 15-year tenure as dean of the School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. Speaking inside the new 4,000 square foot barn, she added, "This living laboratory will now be accessible 365 days a year."

The sustainably built barn, which encloses a technology enabled classroom, offices, processing space, and more, was made possible by a gift from Terry Huffington, '77, a longtime volunteer and board member of the school.

"The Terry Huffington Barn completes the infrastructure we need to realize our academic mission on the farm," said Patrick Archie, director of the Stanford Educational Farm Program, noting that the facility even holds a maker space for the development of "tools and systems to benefit small farms far beyond Stanford."

Huffington, who relishes the opportunity to "learn something new every day" in her second career as an organic farmer, hopes the barn will help the farm offer the same experience to others in and around the Stanford community. Citing the importance of hands-on learning experiences focused on sustainable practices, soil health, food systems, and more, she said, "When I heard a barn was needed for the farm to fully deliver its mission, I was on board before anyone asked."

Hearth and Healing

"It is by design that we saved the space at the heart of the farm for the fire," said Archie, speaking of the Welch Family Kitchen. The outdoor cooking and gathering space, connected to the barn by a small paved courtyard, was provided by a gift from Heidi, MBA '90, and Dave Welch (Parents '16, '17, '21). Two mature oak trees were relocated from other parts of campus to help define and shelter the gathering area.

"The kitchen brings us together, completing the cycle from seed to produce to shared meals," Archie said, allowing students "to learn about healthful nutrition and what it takes to sustain our bodies and our communities."

The Welch family has long been inspired by the farm's contribution to environmental education at Stanford, explained Heidi Welch, but the kitchen feels extra special because of her personal interest in food and its impact on health. "Food is more than just calories," she said. "My hope and dream is that the farm will reconnect us to our food and the power it has in healing."

With the new barn and outdoor kitchen in place, Matson said, "The farm is now set up as the learning center we have long been hoping for."

PHOTOS: Stacy Geiken

Winter 2018

Tad and Dianne Taube of Taube Philanthropies have made two gifts totaling $14.5 million to Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford to address addiction and concussions—two of the most significant issues affecting the health and well-being of children and adolescents.

A gift of $9.5 million will launch the Tad and Dianne Taube Youth Addiction Initiative, the first program of its kind to comprehensively address the treatment and prevention of addiction during adolescence and conduct research into its causes. Another gift of $5 million will create the Taube Stanford Concussion Collaborative, leveraging Stanford and Packard Children's medical expertise and collaboration with TeachAids, a Stanford-founded educational technology nonprofit, to advance education, care, and research to protect children from concussions.

"As parents, Dianne and I see that young people today are facing a new world of challenges," says Tad Taube, chairman of Taube Philanthropies. "We want to educate families and raise awareness about the risks and signs of addiction and concussion in children and adolescents. It can make an all-important difference in their lives."

"When it comes to health, we must think as big as we can," says Lloyd Minor, MD, the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine. "Going after the hardest problems is not only the right thing to do, it is the prudent thing to do. I am immensely grateful to Tad and Dianne Taube for their dedication to Stanford Medicine and their bold commitment to the health and well-being of children and adolescents everywhere."

Addiction: Earlier Intervention Needed

More than 90 percent of Americans who meet the medical criteria for addiction started smoking, drinking, or using other drugs before the age of 18, but no research programs have been dedicated to prevention and intervention during these formative years—until now.

The Tad and Dianne Taube Youth Addiction Initiative will be led by the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, which has identified advancing the understanding of addiction's causes and its prevention and treatment as a priority of the department. The initiative will be the first of its kind in the nation to fully address addiction during earliest exposure in adolescence. It is part of a major endeavor at Stanford School of Medicine and Packard Children's to address mental health—the greatest unmet health care need for young people ages 12 to 25.

Addiction, along with other mental health challenges, is a neglected and profoundly stigmatized issue both in adults and young people. Adolescence is a particularly vulnerable time, with hormonal surges and changes in brain development occurring just as young people are facing greater expectations and responsibilities at home and in school, and drug use frequently overlaps with other mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. Although addiction can take many forms, ranging from drugs to social media, there is evidence to suggest that the underlying neuro-circuitry of addiction may be the same.

The Taubes' gift will establish a new endowed directorship to organize, launch, and lead the youth addiction initiative; an endowed postdoctoral fellowship to train an early-career researcher or clinician in child and adolescent mental health with a focus on youth addiction; and three endowed faculty scholar awards for three faculty members who will, respectively, focus on clinical care, research, and community engagement.

Concussions: The Invisible Epidemic

In the United States, the incidence of concussions in children is rising; there are now up to 3.8 million sports- and recreation-related concussions annually. This epidemic, combined with a "tough it out" culture, has led children, parents, and coaches to trivialize these head injuries and to allow the athlete to continue playing--which prolongs recovery time and increases the risk of a follow-on concussion.

The Taubes' gift to launch the Taube Stanford Concussion Collaborative will enable Stanford neurosurgeon Gerald Grant, MD, FACS, Stanford bioengineer David Camarillo, PhD, and  Stanford Graduate School of Education lecturer Piya Sorcar, PhD, to advance concussion education, care, and research to protect children from the cumulative effects of concussions.

"Tad and I share the concerns of fellow parents about the safety of young athletes in our community and beyond," says Dianne Taube. "Our hope through this gift is to ensure the safety of our youth and provide current, useful information to educate parents, coaches, and players."

Grant and Camarillo have already made strides in more precisely measuring, diagnosing, and treating concussions in young athletes, including Stanford University football and women's lacrosse players. TeachAids, founded by Sorcar, is developing the first comprehensive, research-based educational software that will address misconceptions about concussions, support brain health and safety, and increase the reporting of concussions. By leveraging Stanford technology, TeachAids will deliver an interactive learning experience free of charge, first to Bay Area high schools and eventually up to 10,000 schools nationwide.

Stanford also plans to monitor athletes who use the TeachAids educational platform through a variety of methods, including "smart" mouthguards developed by the Camarillo Lab at Stanford that measure head motion during impact and eventually may help predict the likelihood of concussion. The data gathered will be analyzed to develop algorithms that will help clinicians predict an individual athlete's risk for concussion and lead to personalized approaches to preventing and treating concussion.

This story was originally published by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health

Winter 2018

Tad and Dianne Taube of Taube Philanthropies have made two gifts totaling $14.5 million to Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford to address addiction and concussions—two of the most significant issues affecting the health and well-being of children and adolescents.

A gift of $9.5 million will launch the Tad and Dianne Taube Youth Addiction Initiative, the first program of its kind to comprehensively address the treatment and prevention of addiction during adolescence and conduct research into its causes. Another gift of $5 million will create the Taube Stanford Concussion Collaborative, leveraging Stanford and Packard Children's medical expertise and collaboration with TeachAids, a Stanford-founded educational technology nonprofit, to advance education, care, and research to protect children from concussions.

"As parents, Dianne and I see that young people today are facing a new world of challenges," says Tad Taube, chairman of Taube Philanthropies. "We want to educate families and raise awareness about the risks and signs of addiction and concussion in children and adolescents. It can make an all-important difference in their lives."

"When it comes to health, we must think as big as we can," says Lloyd Minor, MD, the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine. "Going after the hardest problems is not only the right thing to do, it is the prudent thing to do. I am immensely grateful to Tad and Dianne Taube for their dedication to Stanford Medicine and their bold commitment to the health and well-being of children and adolescents everywhere."

Addiction: Earlier Intervention Needed

More than 90 percent of Americans who meet the medical criteria for addiction started smoking, drinking, or using other drugs before the age of 18, but no research programs have been dedicated to prevention and intervention during these formative years—until now.

The Tad and Dianne Taube Youth Addiction Initiative will be led by the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, which has identified advancing the understanding of addiction's causes and its prevention and treatment as a priority of the department. The initiative will be the first of its kind in the nation to fully address addiction during earliest exposure in adolescence. It is part of a major endeavor at Stanford School of Medicine and Packard Children's to address mental health—the greatest unmet health care need for young people ages 12 to 25.

Addiction, along with other mental health challenges, is a neglected and profoundly stigmatized issue both in adults and young people. Adolescence is a particularly vulnerable time, with hormonal surges and changes in brain development occurring just as young people are facing greater expectations and responsibilities at home and in school, and drug use frequently overlaps with other mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety. Although addiction can take many forms, ranging from drugs to social media, there is evidence to suggest that the underlying neuro-circuitry of addiction may be the same.

The Taubes' gift will establish a new endowed directorship to organize, launch, and lead the youth addiction initiative; an endowed postdoctoral fellowship to train an early-career researcher or clinician in child and adolescent mental health with a focus on youth addiction; and three endowed faculty scholar awards for three faculty members who will, respectively, focus on clinical care, research, and community engagement.

Concussions: The Invisible Epidemic

In the United States, the incidence of concussions in children is rising; there are now up to 3.8 million sports- and recreation-related concussions annually. This epidemic, combined with a "tough it out" culture, has led children, parents, and coaches to trivialize these head injuries and to allow the athlete to continue playing--which prolongs recovery time and increases the risk of a follow-on concussion.

The Taubes' gift to launch the Taube Stanford Concussion Collaborative will enable Stanford neurosurgeon Gerald Grant, MD, FACS, Stanford bioengineer David Camarillo, PhD, and  Stanford Graduate School of Education lecturer Piya Sorcar, PhD, to advance concussion education, care, and research to protect children from the cumulative effects of concussions.

"Tad and I share the concerns of fellow parents about the safety of young athletes in our community and beyond," says Dianne Taube. "Our hope through this gift is to ensure the safety of our youth and provide current, useful information to educate parents, coaches, and players."

Grant and Camarillo have already made strides in more precisely measuring, diagnosing, and treating concussions in young athletes, including Stanford University football and women's lacrosse players. TeachAids, founded by Sorcar, is developing the first comprehensive, research-based educational software that will address misconceptions about concussions, support brain health and safety, and increase the reporting of concussions. By leveraging Stanford technology, TeachAids will deliver an interactive learning experience free of charge, first to Bay Area high schools and eventually up to 10,000 schools nationwide.

Stanford also plans to monitor athletes who use the TeachAids educational platform through a variety of methods, including "smart" mouthguards developed by the Camarillo Lab at Stanford that measure head motion during impact and eventually may help predict the likelihood of concussion. The data gathered will be analyzed to develop algorithms that will help clinicians predict an individual athlete's risk for concussion and lead to personalized approaches to preventing and treating concussion.

This story was originally published by the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health

Winter 2020

John Arrillaga, a leading Bay Area real-estate developer, philanthropist, alumnus and longtime supporter of the university, has made a $55 million commitment to the Stanford University School of Medicine that, together with other philanthropic and school resources, will help eliminate medical school debt for qualified incoming students.

Arrillaga's contribution was made as a challenge gift, which the School of Medicine plans to match through a combination of philanthropic donations and increased institutional support.

In total, $90 million in new scholarship funding is expected to go toward debt elimination for medical students with need over the next 10 years.

"This gift will be life-changing for a large number of our medical students," said Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne. "We are very grateful to John for this generous donation, which will not only help encourage the most talented and promising students to pursue a Stanford medical school education, but ultimately enable them to choose a career path that is most meaningful to them."

The Stanford University School of Medicine has long been a leader among peer institutions in addressing the high cost of attending medical school. Thanks to a number of long-established debt-alleviation programs at the school, the class of 2019 graduated with median student debt of just over $89,000, significantly lower than the median national debt of $200,000 reported for that year by the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Student financial need is determined by considering the total cost of attendance, inclusive of tuition and living expenses, minus the available family contribution. This gift effectively doubles the amount of assistance that the university can offer to incoming classes, ensuring that qualified students who would otherwise have to borrow money to attend medical school at Stanford no longer have to do so. During the last academic year, more than two-thirds of Stanford medical students qualified for financial support. The university expects this gift, and the additional philanthropic funding made possible by the match, to help expand that assistance to all lower- and middle-income students.

While some U.S. medical schools have recently announced programs eliminating tuition for all students regardless of need, Arrillaga's intention is to help the university provide a more holistic program that focuses funding on those with established need.

"Our hope is to address the rising cost of medical school by eliminating the financial pressure for those students who feel it most," said Lloyd Minor, the Carl and Elizabeth Naumann Dean of the School of Medicine. "Also, because we live in an area with such a high overall cost of living, we appreciate that tuition-free does not necessarily mean debt-free. Merely addressing tuition costs is not sufficient, as students must often take out large loans to cover their room, board and other living expenses. With this extraordinary gift, we are able to structure a program that is inclusive of an individual student's total need."

Arrillaga has played a key role in the development of many campus projects and has made extraordinary contributions to undergraduate scholarship programs, capital projects and athletics at the university over the years. A recipient of financial aid himself as a student-athlete at Stanford before graduating in 1960, Arrillaga continues to pay it forward by directing his latest gift to help the university achieve its vision of eliminating the need for students to incur medical school debt.

"I hope this gift will attract a diverse group of the best and brightest students from every socioeconomic background to the university and bring a Stanford Medical School education within reach for any student who may not have been able to consider it otherwise," said Arrillaga. "I believe that focusing aid on students with established need is what is best from an equity and opportunity standpoint."

Stanford hopes that eliminating the debt burden for students with need will also allow them to consider less lucrative specialties, as well as careers in research and teaching. Recent reports from the National Institutes of Health have shown the number of physician-scientists in the U.S. workforce declining rapidly. The medical school believes that alleviating the pressure to pay off debt can encourage more students to pursue paths of conducting academic research, discovering new treatments and being part of the next generation of medical educators and leaders.

Financial aid packages offered to students accepted to the school's fall 2019 class were among the first to include some of these enhanced funds, which may already be having an impact. That class was one of the most diverse in the medical school's history, with approximately 23 of its 90 students coming from groups that are traditionally underrepresented in medicine. This rise follows a trend of significantly increasing numbers of students from minority backgrounds matriculating at the medical school over the past five years, from 17% in 2014 to almost 26% today.

To learn more about the impact of the new funding and to hear the stories of some of the medical students benefitting from Stanford's focus on expanding scholarships, go to medchallengegift.stanford.edu.

This article originally appeared in Stanford News.

Winter 2019

Teams of scientists, engineers, and clinicians from across Stanford's campus will soon be able to join forces, share expertise, and access laboratories with state-of-the-art equipment, thanks to an expansive new research complex opening this month.

Dedicated to the life sciences and human health, the facility brings together two interdisciplinary institutes—the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and Stanford ChEM-H (Chemistry, Engineering and Medicine for Human Health)—in two interconnecting buildings. The four-story complex provides 235,000 square feet for work, study, and social activity, including a suite of community labs.

"The opening of this complex heralds a new era of scientific collaboration and discovery on campus," President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said. "The Stanford ChEM-H Building and the Stanford Neurosciences Building will be accessible to the whole university community, allowing experts from different disciplines to work together in advancing human health. We are deeply thankful for the extraordinary generosity of those who are making this visionary complex and these transformative opportunities possible."

Philanthropic support played a key role in the $256 million complex, with longtime university donors William and Sophy Ding making a foundational gift for the Stanford ChEM-H Building and anonymous donors supporting the Stanford Neurosciences Building. Additional funding was provided by the schools of Humanities and Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, as well as university sources.

William Ding, whose Chinese name is Ding Lei, is the founder and CEO of NetEase, a Chinese internet technology firm. He and his wife Sophy, or Wang Xunfang, also support disaster relief and educational equity in China and elsewhere in Asia. In addition to anonymous gifts, generous philanthropic support is also being provided by the Kaneko Family, Koret Foundation, James Lin and Nisa Leung, and Alice N. Y. Woo.

Built for Team Science

At the heart of the complex are seven neuroscience community labs and three ChEM-H knowledge centers with specialized equipment. These cross-disciplinary spaces, staffed by professional scientists, will accelerate discovery by providing access to the latest technologies and hands-on expertise not otherwise readily available to individual faculty.

Two-story "living rooms" offer break-out working spaces and meeting rooms where faculty, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students can study and connect.

"These facilities provide a blueprint for the future of collaborative team science," said Kathryn Moler, vice provost and dean of research. "Part of that plan is to arm researchers with advances in computing and imaging that will speed up the pace of discovery. Ten years from now, we'll be able to look back and trace real breakthroughs to what these research buildings, and the Wu Tsai and ChEM-H institutes, made possible."

Designed by Ennead Architects, the complex is located at the crossroads of medicine, science, and engineering, just steps away from Stanford's two hospitals and adjacent to the James H. Clark Center, home of Stanford Bio-X. At the entrance near Jane Stanford Way and Campus Drive, a walkway directs visitors into a central garden courtyard. The two airy, light-filled buildings are connected by an outdoor terrace on the second floor that overlooks the courtyard.

New Faculty Recruits

The opening of the research complex is a milestone for Stanford ChEM-H, which was established in 2013. The institute brings together nearly 150 affiliated chemists, engineers, biologists and clinicians from across campus who are working to understand life at the molecular level and apply that knowledge to improving human health.

Every faculty member moving into the 20 labs in the Stanford ChEM-H Building is a recent hire, apart from Chaitan Khosla, the founder and Baker Family Co-Director of the institute. ChEM-H has recruited 10 top scientists to date and fundraising is under way to attract 10 more.

"These new faculty are scientific pioneers," said Khosla, who also holds the Wells H. Rauser and Harold M. Petiprin Professorship. "They have the collaborative expertise to make research move faster. They will place highly promising scientific bets and accelerate more wins in their quest to invent better medicines. And they are committed to helping others move effortlessly back and forth between disciplines."

Chemist Carolyn Bertozzi was one of the first recruits when she joined Stanford in 2015.

"I came here because I saw an opportunity to build a research institute with a new vision for how chemistry, engineering and medicine can work together," said Bertozzi, who is the Baker Family Co-Director, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Chemistry and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "There is nothing quite like ChEM-H."

William Newsome, the Vincent V. C. Woo Director of the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, said the purpose-built complex offers more than 480 affiliated researchers an unparalleled opportunity to accelerate research into the brain, which he describes as "the most complex entity in the known universe."

"If we are really going to understand the brain, we have to bring the experimental and theoretical scientists together," said Newsome, the Harman Family Provostial Professor and professor of neurobiology. "This building, which includes 24 faculty labs and a sandbox for testing experimental devices, will help foster new levels of interaction that will benefit a much larger community."

A Hub—and Pub—for Collaborations

Even before opening, the complex has fostered serendipitous collaborations. During a planning session, Bertozzi met Tony Wyss-Coray, the D. H. Chen Professor II of Neurology, and discovered they were pursuing related research. They teamed up and identified a gene involved in age-related cognitive decline - then found a way to reverse that decline in mice. Their research may one day make a difference in human health by helping to improve the lives of those who suffer from neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's.

Spaces throughout the new facility will promote that kind of serendipitous connection - including a pub, prominently located on Campus Drive at the beginning of Jane Stanford Way.

"The pub is emblematic of our view that this complex should serve the entire campus," Bertozzi said. "It may sound simple, but place a pub in a building and see how it changes the ecosystem. It sends the message, 'Please come here.'"