UC Irvine computer science program to get $35.5-million alumni gift

UC Irvine will obtain a $35.5-million reward from the property of alumni Paul and Jo Butterworth, the college introduced Monday.

The donation, which is the biggest alumni reward within the college’s historical past, will help the Donald Bren Faculty of Data and Laptop Sciences. It would fund analysis initiatives and help college students by means of awards, fellowships and scholarships, college officers stated in a information launch.

Paul Butterworth was one of many first graduates of UC Irvine’s pc science program within the mid-Nineteen Seventies, based on the college. He went on to co-found the enterprise software program firm Vantiq.

Butterworth majored in engineering earlier than altering to pc science and earned his bachelor’s diploma in 1974.

“UCI is the place I started my profession as a pc scientist and software program engineer,” he stated in an announcement. “Whereas at UCI, I met one other one who was a graduate scholar on the time, and we ended up working collectively nicely into the Nineteen Eighties. You would say UCI is the place all of my success actually began.”

Butterworth stated he wouldn’t have been in a position to end his diploma with out the monetary help he obtained in school.

“I used to be contemplating not going to the college until I obtained monetary assist, as a result of I didn’t have any cash. However when UCI got here by means of with a package deal to assist out, that made all of the distinction on the planet,” he stated. “That is what impressed us to pledge help for college kids — to allow them to comply with their desires regardless of their monetary conditions.”

Jo Butterworth earned her bachelor’s diploma in 1975 from UC Irvine’s college of social sciences.

Chancellor Howard Gillman referred to as the Butterworths “the best champions of scholars at our establishment.”

Along with co-founding Vantiq, Paul Butterworth co-founded the cloud platform improvement firm Emotive and labored in pc engineering and expertise roles at Oracle, Solar and Ingres. He’s been a part of the pc science trade for the final 50 years, based on the college.

“Universities had been the catalyst for all of this progress, as a result of that’s the place the basic applied sciences had been developed,” Butterworth stated. “That’s why Jo and I are dedicated to supporting UCI and its college students: Schooling is the place we are able to have the largest influence.”