UCLA Receives $100M Donation For Expansion Of Engineering School

LOS ANGELES -- The UCLA Samueli School of Engineering has received its largest gift ever: $100 million from longtime supporters Henry and Susan Samueli.

The gift, made through the Samueli Foundation, will be used to spur the engineering school’s planned expansion, according to the university. Including today’s gift, the Samuelis have given more than $188 million to UCLA and more than $478 million overall to the University of California system.

UCLA Samueli plans to enroll at least 7,000 undergraduate and graduate students by 2028, up from 5,300 at the start of the expansion in 2016. The school said it also plans to add about 100 professors over the same period of time for a roster of nearly 250. New faculty will be in emerging research areas, such as engineering in medicine, quantum technologies and sustainable and resilient urban systems.

In 2000, the engineering school was named in Henry Samueli’s honor following a $30 million gift that supported capital improvements as well as fellowships for graduate students and early career faculty. Since then, the Samuelis have made several additional gifts to the engineering school, including $10 million to support the establishment of endowed professorships and $20 million to support undergraduate students through scholarships and internships.

“Susan and I are thrilled to be able to support the continued expansion of the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering,” Henry Samueli said. “The demand for engineering graduates has continued to grow unabated, so it is exciting to see UCLA’s significant commitment to increase the number of students and faculty, and expand research and entrepreneurship within the school.”

A full-time professor of electrical engineering at UCLA from 1985 to 1995, Henry Samueli earned three degrees from UCLA: a bachelor’s in 1975, a master’s in 1976 and his doctorate in 1980. He co-founded Broadcom Corporation in 1991 and serves as chairman of the board of the company, which is now known as Broadcom Inc. Based in San Jose, California, the firm is one of the world’s largest semiconductor and infrastructure software companies.

As part of its growth plan, the school also has expanded its infrastructure, adding two new buildings in the past 12 years. The latest is the 150,000-square-foot Engineering VI, which opened in March 2018, and houses the school’s growing computer science department and multidisciplinary research laboratories.