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Pitt to receive $22 million for energy research
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The University of Pittsburgh announced today that a center within its Swanson School of Engineering is receiving a $22 million gift from the Richard King Mellon Foundation.
Pitt declined to release a list of previous foundation gift amounts but described the Mellon gift as one of the largest such gifts in the university's history.
The money awarded to Pitt's Center for Energy will further research and education aimed at better energy technology development and sustainability, university officials said.
The bulk of the gift will be used to add faculty and graduate fellowships as well as to create a fund to encourage research innovation, officials said.
The money also will provide backing for research equipment and center operations.
It will be payable over three years to the center, which draws on expertise of 70 faculty and their research teams across the university in various engineering disciplines and basic sciences including geology.
"The level of our investment reflects our confidence in the academic and administrative leadership of the University," Scott D. Izzo, director of the Richard King Mellon Foundation, said in a prepared statement. "The center has tremendous potential to make an impact in Pittsburgh, as energy will be the major driver of our regional economy for years to come."
The Center for Energy is devoted to studies in energy delivery and efficiency, advanced materials for demanding energy technologies, carbon management, and energy diversification, Pitt said. The center was established in 2008.
University leaders are among those expected at an Oakland event this afternoon formally announcing the gift.
The proper handling of various energy issues is a growing national priority and an important factor in a region's prosperity, Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg said in a prepared statement. He praised the foundation's gift, saying it will help the center contribute to the region's progress in this area.
In a prepared statement, Gerald D. Holder, U.S. Steel Dean of Engineering at Pitt, cast energy as an issue of broad and continuing importance.
"Energy will be the defining technical, social, and political issue of the next century," he said in the statement. "While there are enormous pressures to reduce energy consumption, there will continue to be significant growth in the worldwide demand for energy."
First Published February 9, 2012 2:11 pm
