Kaufman Lecture

The mission of the Kaufman Foundation is to support fundamental research in biology, chemistry, and physics at Pennsylvania institutions of higher education. The Kaufman Foundation grants to institutes of higher learning in Pennsylvania for scientists pursuing research that explores their field’s essential questions and/or crosses disciplinary boundaries. Mr. Kaufman believed in the potential impact of fundamental, curiosity-driven science and the strength of working across interdisciplinary boundaries. He also recognized the importance of supporting early and mid-career scientists, while acknowledging the major accomplishments achieved after a lifetime of high-impact contributions. When he died in 2010, Charles Kaufman, a respected chemical engineer, left $50 million to The Pittsburgh Foundation of which $40 million is earmarked for continuing his life-long commitment to scientific research with the potential to improve human life. Since 2013, and including 2017, the Foundation has awarded 43 grants totaling $9.1 million. 

The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation, a supporting organization of The Pittsburgh Foundation, has awarded eight grants totaling $1.8 million to support research at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, The Pennsylvania State University, Swarthmore College and University of Pennsylvania.

The Kaufman Scientific Advisory Board received 229 letters of intent from 30 academic institutions seeking funding in two categories: New Investigators and New Initiatives.

Noa Marom won a New Investigators Award, i.e., a grant of $150,000 for two years ($75,000 per year), for research on “Singlet Fission: Deriving Fundamental Insights from Computation.”

Michael Hatridge and Roger Mong won a New Initiatives Award, i.e., a grant of $300,000 for two years ($150,000 per year) for research on “Protecting Quantum Wires for Quantum Computing.”

In this fourth year of the annual competition, a total of eight grants were awarded to researchers at four Pennsylvania higher education institutions: Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, The Pennsylvania State University and University of Pennsylvania.

The Kaufman Scientific Advisory Board received 229 letters of intent from 30 academic institutions seeking funding in two categories: New Investigators and New Initiatives.

Benjamin Hunt won a New Investigators Award, i.e., a grant of $150,000 for two years ($75,000 per year), for research on “Proximity effects and topological spin currents in van der Waals heterostructures.” 

Brian D’Urso and Gurudev Dutt won a New Initiatives Award, i.e., a grant of $300,000 for two years ($150,000 per year) for research on “Trapped diamond nanocrystals for precision gravitational measurements and tests of quantum gravity.” 

Read the abstracts here and here, respectively.

The Kaufman Foundation announced on Wednesday that it is awarding about $2 million through 10 grants to researchers at six universities. In the New Investigator Research category, a grant of $150,000 over two years was awarded to Theodore Corcovilos for research on “Experimental quantum emulation of two-dimensional topological insulators and Majorana fermions using ultra-cold atoms”.