Alumnus John Malone Commits $50 Million to Yale’s Engineering School

Liberty Media and Liberty Global Chairman John Malone, Yale College Class of 1963, has made a gift of $50 million to Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science (SEAS) to endow ten new professorships, President Richard C. Levin announced today. The gift is the largest in the School’s history.

“We are deeply grateful to John Malone for this transformational gift to Yale Engineering,” said Levin. “These resources will provide for a substantial expansion of our faculty and give momentum to the continuing renaissance of our Engineering programs at a time when the advance of technology and the education of engineers is so vitally important to our nation’s future.”

A major figure in the telecommunications and media industries and a cable television pioneer, Malone has been a leading supporter of Yale Engineering. An earlier contribution funded the construction of the Daniel L. Malone Engineering Center, named in memory of his father, which opened in 2005 to house Yale’s Department of Biomedical Engineering.

“I believe the work of Yale Engineering is critically important,” Malone said. “In a world with diminishing resources, exploding populations, and immense complexity, only science and technology can improve the standard of living for people on a global basis. We need our nation’s best institutions to be invested in this work, and I am eager to support Yale as it continues to build top level programs in engineering research and education.”

Following the recruitment of T. Kyle Vanderlick in 2007 to serve as dean, Yale’s Faculty of Engineering was formally restructured in 2008 as the School of Engineering & Applied Science. Since then, Vanderlick has pursued a strategic plan aimed at bringing new scope and eminence to a program with a 150-year history.

“We have charted a three-tiered plan for growth,” Vanderlick said, “focused on developing our rigorous degree programs, supporting interdisciplinary research, and building what I call a culture of engineering both in and outside of our classrooms. We aim to cultivate what we call ‘Y’ shaped people-having depth, breadth, and the sense of purpose that is at the root of an engineering education.”

In coming years, the Malone professorships will allow the hiring of new faculty members across SEAS’s four departments of Biomedical Engineering, Chemical & Environmental Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science. Vanderlick also plans to advance four interdisciplinary research priorities that align with current faculty strengths and promise to meet high-impact challenges: Biomolecular Engineering & Biodesign; Energy & Sustainability; Imaging, Sensing, & Networked Systems; and Surface & Interfacial Engineering.

Two of the ten professorships will be joint appointments with the Yale School of Management, enabling curricular initiatives that connect engineering and business.

“The addition of ten professorships is a milestone in our growth,” said Vanderlick. “The engine of academic advancement is the faculty,” she noted, “and this magnificent and magnanimous investment in Yale Engineering will allow us to move forward on all fronts with supercharged acceleration.”

Levin said, “This commitment gives tremendous momentum to Yale Engineering as it moves to meet its goals for the future. We expect it will bring enormous benefits, not only to the campus, but also the world, helping to meet the incessant demand for new materials, energy sources, and technologies. And we are delighted that the Malone Professorships will forever honor one of Yale’s most generous benefactors.”

Born in Milford, Connecticut, Malone attended Hopkins Grammar School in New Haven before entering Yale and earning his B.S. degree in electrical engineering in 1963. After graduation, he obtained a master’s degree in industrial management from New York University and a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in operations research. Following stints with Bell Labs and McKinsey & Company, Malone joined Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) and led the company-and the industry-through a period of rapid expansion and innovation. When the company was sold to AT&T in 1999, Malone retained controlling shares in Liberty Media, a TCI spinoff, and has continued to invest in media enterprises in the U.S. and abroad.

In addition to Yale, Malone has supported The Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering and Hopkins Grammar School. Among his many industry awards are the 2006 Sean Lemass Gold Medal for Business Leadership at Trinity College Dublin, an honorary degree from the University of Denver, and the National Cable Television Association’s Vanguard Award. He is a four-time winner of Wall Street Transcript’s Gold Award for the cable television industry’s best chief executive officer, and he won a Bronze Award in the 1993 Financial World CEO of the Year competition. He was named a Sheffield Fellow at Yale, a designation that honors leaders and innovators in business, industry and government who are at the forefront of important developments in their fields.

PRESS CONTACT: Steven Geringer 203-432-4224