$4.75M Gift Establishes Brin Mathematics Research Center

A family with deep connections to the University of Maryland is making a new $4.75 million gift to its Department of Mathematics to expand mathematics and statistics research and education programs and support visiting scholars, workshops and symposia, and summer programs.

Mathematics Professor Emeritus Michael Brin, his wife Eugenia and the Sergey Brin Family Foundation are establishing the Brin Mathematics Research Center, which will foster interactions between mathematicians at UMD and around the world.

“The impact and generosity of the Brin family here at the University of Maryland is extraordinary,” said Amitabh Varshney, dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. “We are honored that the Brin family’s latest gift will support pure mathematics and statistics research and its applications to nearly every sector of our economy.”

The center, housed in the Computer Science Instructional Center, will organize its activities around annual themes. Each year will be dedicated to several different research areas. The center will invite visiting scholars and host scientific meetings on these themes.

“The University of Maryland was a welcoming home for our family for many years. We hope that the new center will significantly advance mathematics research at Maryland,” said Michael Brin, who retired from UMD in 2011 after 31 years on its faculty.

Michael and Eugenia, a retired NASA scientist, parents to Google co-founder Sergey ’93 (mathematics and computer science) and Samuel ’09 (computer science), have made several significant gifts over the years to support the university’s Department of Mathematics; Department of Computer Science; Russian program; and School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies.

“This gift is truly transformational for our department,” said Doron Levy, chair of the Department of Mathematics and inaugural director of the Brin Mathematics Research Center. “With exciting faculty hires, an expanded postdoctoral program, new research opportunities and many educational initiatives, our department aims to be one of the top mathematics departments in the world. The Brin Mathematics Research Center is key to achieving our goals. The level of support it will provide to our research activities is unprecedented within the mathematical community. On behalf of my colleagues, I would like to thank the Brin family for their outstanding gift.”

The department currently ranks ninth in the nation among public institutions, according to U.S. News & World Report, and has over 100 tenured/tenure-track and professional-track faculty members, nearly 800 undergraduate majors and 200 graduate students, and teaches about 10,000 students a semester.

The Brin family’s gift supported Fearless Ideas: The Campaign for Maryland, UMD’s recently completed $1.5 billion fundraising campaign focused on elevating and expanding the university’s mission of service, enhancing academic distinction and bolstering UMD’s leading-edge research enterprise.