Caltech receives $10 million Fairchild grant

Deborah Williams-Hedges

The California Institute of Technology has received a $10 million grant from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation to establish an endowment for the existing Sherman Fairchild Postdoctoral Scholars Program in theoretical physics, theoretical astrophysics, and mathematics.

The endowment will provide the best young scholars in these areas with three- to six-year postdoctoral appointments, along with infrastructure support. The goal of the endowment is to furnish scholars with a supportive, unencumbered research environment, and to allow for collaboration with an international network of premier scientists.

The endowment will facilitate advanced research in areas such as particle, nuclear, and string theory; theoretical astrophysics and relativity; condensed-matter physics; atomic physics and quantum computation; and mathematical physics.

The Fairchild Foundation has been a significant benefactor to Caltech for many years, establishing the Distinguished Scholars Program and providing seed funding for the Center for Computational Research in Biology and for the Sherman Fairchild Library of Engineering and Applied Science.

According to Caltech president David Baltimore, “Caltech is fortunate to have a long relationship with the Sherman Fairchild Foundation through which many of our most outstanding scientists have benefited. The foundation’s exceptional commitment and foresight have ensured that our postdoctoral scholars have sufficient resources available to them so that they can achieve their maximum potential.”

The foundation was incorporated in 1955 by Sherman Fairchild, inventor of the Fairchild aerial camera, chairman of Fairchild Camera Instrument Co. and of Fairchild Hiller Corp., owner of Fairchild Recording Equipment Co., and a director of IBM.
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