Investor William H. “Bill” Miller III has committed $50 million to Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Miller’s commitment will fund graduate research, postdoctoral fellowships, and endowed professorships.
His gift inspired two anonymous donors to contribute to the department, bringing the funding to $75 million.
Miller is the founder and chairman of Miller Value Partners and former manager of the Legg Mason Capital Management Value Trust.
He received his undergraduate degree from Washington and Lee University and later studied philosophy at Johns Hopkins.
Miller currently serves on the Johns Hopkins University board of trustees.
In 2018, Miller donated $75 million to the Johns Hopkins Department of Philosophy, which is believed to be the largest gift ever to a university philosophy program.
In November, he committed $50 million to the Santa Fe Institute, a nonprofit research institute in New Mexico.
His latest gift will be centered around funding for young scientists.
“Physics seeks to understand reality at its most fundamental level. It is the bedrock on which the other sciences rest,” Miller said in a news release.
“I am delighted to be able to make a gift to Johns Hopkins physics that will enable it to add new resources and continue to build on its distinguished history,” he said.
The donation will fund the creation of 10 postdoctoral fellowships and 10 endowed graduate research fellowships.
It will also support the establishment of three endowed professorships and pay for research infrastructure such as laboratory equipment and instruments.
A gift of this scale will allow the Hopkins physics department to continue to make “really big discoveries that only happen when you have the financial freedom to pursue edgy research,” said Michael Turner, an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, in a news release.
The donation will also make the department an “even more enticing place” for young scientists, said Timothy Heckman, a Johns Hopkins professor and department chair, in a statement.
In recognition of Miller’s donation, the department will be renamed the William H. Miller III Department of Physics and Astronomy.
Miller’s gift “will have an astounding impact on discovery that could potentially reveal new truths about some of the deep mysteries of the universe and how we live in it,” Heckman said.
