Henry and Susan Samueli Give UCLA $100 Million

Broadcom co-founder Henry Samueli and his wife, Susan, gave $100 million to the University of California at Los Angeles to expand the Samueli School of Engineering over the next 10 years, adding 100 new professors to the faculty in new research fields like engineering in medicine, quantum technologies, and sustainable and resilient urban systems, UCLA officials announced Tuesday.

The money will also go toward enrolling nearly 2,000 more undergraduate and graduate students.

The Samuelis have a decades-long association with UCLA. The gift announced today was their biggest to the university so far. The engineering school was named for the couple in 2000 when they gave $30 million for graduate fellowships and professorships. They gave the institution $20 million in 2017 to back scholarships for undergraduates and $10 million in 2016 to endow professorships.

Forbes pegs Henry Samueli’s wealth at $4.1 billion. Before starting Broadcom, a semiconductor and software company, in 1991, he was a full-time professor of electrical engineering at UCLA and an alumnus. He earned three degrees from university: a bachelor’s in 1975, a master’s in 1976, and a Ph.D. in 1980. He co-founded Broadcom with one of his Ph.D. students at the time, Henry Nicholas.

While the Samuelis have given extensively to UCLA, they have also donated significant sums to other institutions, including $200 million in 2017 to the University of California at Irvine to create the Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences. The college is focused on “integrative care,” treating the whole person using several types of therapeutic, preventive, and other care.

Including their latest gifts, the Samuelis have given at least $365 million to nonprofits over the past two decades and appeared on the Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors in 2017.