Kimberly Querrey Gives $121 Million for Biomedical Research and Other Programs

A roundup of notable gifts compiled by the Chronicle:

Northwestern University

Kimberly Querrey gave $121 million through the Louis Simpson Trust, a charitable trust named for her late husband, to expand the university’s biomedical-research programs and to support its business school. Querrey directed $100 million toward several programs within the Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Biomedical Research Center, including the construction of a 19-level tower with 15 lab floors, the creation and endowment of both the Simpson Querrey Lung Institute for Translational Science and the Simpson Querrey Center for Neurovascular Sciences, and the funding of the Kimberly Prize in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics.

In addition, $11 million will support the Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics, and $10 million will back executive-education programs at the university’s Kellogg School of Management.

Querrey and Simpson co-founded SQ Advisors, an investment advisory firm in Naples, Fla., where she served as president and chief compliance officer. She also founded and led Querrey Enterprises, a business operations, environment, and health and safety consulting firm.

Simpson was an investment executive with Geico, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. He graduated from Northwestern in 1958 and later served as a senior fellow, an adjunct professor of finance, and a member of the Kellogg School’s Asset Management Practicum advisory council. He died in February at 85. The couple appeared on the 2015 Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors.

Girl Scouts of the USA

MacKenzie Scott gave $84.5 million to support the youth organization and 29 of its local branches, which were chosen by Scott. The gift will be used to help the nonprofit shore up its membership, which dropped during the pandemic, and to support volunteers and hire more staff. The money will also go toward renovating camp facilities, strengthening its science and technology programs, and developing diversity and inclusion efforts to make it easier for girls from underserved backgrounds to join Girl Scouts troops.

Scott is a novelist who helped start the online retail giant Amazon with her former husband, Jeff Bezos. With an estimated $35.7 billion fortune, she is one of the wealthiest women in the world. She has given billions in mostly unrestricted gifts to charity since 2020 and has devoted much of that money to nonprofits that usually do not receive multimillion-dollar gifts and to charities that help underserved or overlooked populations. She appeared on the Chronicle’s Philanthropy 50 list of the biggest donors of 2020.

Oregon State University Foundation

Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang gave $50 million to help establish a new $200 million research and education center focused on the study of artificial intelligence, materials science, and robotics with the aim of solving a range of global challenges in areas such as climate science, oceanography, environmental sustainability and water resources. The new center will be named the Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang Collaborative Innovation Complex and will house one of the nation’s most powerful supercomputers.

Jen-Hsun Huang founded and leads Nvidia Corporation, a company that develops software and microchips for artificial-intelligence applications; he is credited with modernizing computer graphics and helping to advance the gaming market. Before founding Nvidia in 1993, he worked at LSI Logic and Advanced Micro Devices. The new center will employ an Nvidia supercomputer, which will accelerate the research conducted there by helping faculty address highly complex and challenging computational problems.

The Huangs graduated from Oregon high schools and met while undergraduates in OSU’s College of Engineering when they were paired as lab partners in an electrical-fundamentals class. Jen-Hsun and Lori Huang graduated from the university with bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering in 1984 and 1985, respectively.

University of Virginia Darden School of Business

David and Kathleen LaCross pledged $44 million to support a number of programs within the business school. The couple directed $20.5 million toward the construction of new residential housing and $12 million to help endow and name the dean’s chair at Darden. Of the remainder, $5 million will support Darden’s botanical gardens, which will be named for the couple, and the school will receive the remaining $6.5 million as a bequest for a future Darden research center or program on artificial intelligence.

David LaCross founded Risk Management Technology in the early 1990s. The company served financial institutions and was acquired by Fair Isaac Companies, a credit-scoring firm, in 1997. He co-founded Morgan Territory Brewing, a Lafayette, Calif., microbrewery. Earlier in his career, he served as a senior vice president at Bank of America. The couple are UVA alumni. He earned a bachelor’s degree in quantitative methods in 1974 and an MBA from the Darden School in 1978. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1976.

Columbia Law School

Alia Tutor gave $17.5 million through her Alia Tutor Family Foundation to help pay for an extensive renovation of the law school’s library, which will be renamed the Alia Tutor Law Library.

Tutor graduated from the law school in 2000 and formerly served as an adviser to the U.N. Office for Partnerships. Her family has a long association with Columbia. Her grandfather Sidney and her great-grandfather Moses graduated from the law school in 1926 and 1897, respectively, and her grandmother Marie opened a boutique across from the university’s main entrance that catered to students and professors. Her mother later ran the boutique.

Tutor is married to Ronald Tutor, a Los Angeles construction executive who in 2010 was a lead investor in the purchase of the Hollywood film studio Miramax from the Walt Disney Company. Three years later, he sold his stake in the company to Qatar Investment Authority, the film studio’s largest stakeholder, for an undisclosed sum.

Manhattan College School of Science

Michael and Aimee Kakos pledged $15 million to the School of Science to support scholarships for students pursuing undergraduate degrees in a STEM field and financial aid for students to study abroad. The gift will also pay for undergraduate research programs and upgrades to the school’s equipment, laboratories, and other facilities. The school will be named for the donors.

Michael Kakos founded Resin Express, a distributor of thermoplastic and rubber materials, in 1987. Aimee Kakos joined the company in 1989, eventually rising to company director. They sold the company in 1997.

Michael Kakos earned a chemistry degree from the college in 1958 and began his career in materials research. He later worked for the Celanese Corporation, a specialty chemicals company in Irving, Tex. He later moved to England, where he started his company.

Salt Lake Community College School of Business

Gail Miller gave $10 million through her Larry H. & Gail Miller Family Foundation to renovate and expand the business school’s main building, and for upgrades to the Business Resource Instructional Center, which provides students with academic advising and technology assistance. The business school will be named for Miller.

The gift will also be used to establish the Business Scholars Program, which will require students to work with a faculty mentor each semester to create cause-related or nonprofit projects that benefit residents of Salt Lake City.

Miller co-founded and is chairman of the Larry H. Miller Group of Companies, which includes auto dealerships, finance and insurance businesses, sports teams, and entertainment companies. She founded the business with her husband, Larry Miller, now deceased, in 1979.

To learn about other big donations, see our database of gifts of $1 million or more, which is updated regularly.