Anderson gift supports professorship in energy and environment

A new professorship endowed by a gift from Dwight Anderson, a 1989 Princeton alumnus, is part of the University’s comprehensive initiative to address critical issues of energy and the environment in the 21st century. The Anderson Family Professorship in Energy and the Environment will support a tenured faculty member in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

“Meeting the world’s energy needs will be a challenge in the years ahead, and the Anderson Family Professorship will help to ensure that Princeton’s School of Engineering plays a leadership role in that effort,” said Provost Christopher Eisgruber. “This is especially good news for our students, since so many of them are eager for instruction about how science and technology can help us to tackle the world’s energy and environmental problems. We are deeply grateful to Dwight Anderson for his generous gift.”

The school of engineering is moving rapidly to expand its capacity to develop solutions for key societal problems, including those associated with energy and the environment, said engineering dean H. Vincent Poor. “Quality of life around the world requires technologies that improve the efficiency of existing energy sources and lead to the invention of new ones. The Anderson Family Professorship will accelerate Princeton’s impact in this area.”

Anderson is a principal of Ospraie Management, an investment firm he founded in 2000, first as a stand-alone fund within Tudor Investment Corp. and since 2004 as an independent company specializing in basic industries and commodities.

“Princeton plays a central role in the lives of my family,” Anderson said. “We are proud to be part of this extraordinary new initiative and to help bring to campus a leading expert in the intricacies of the energy problem.” Anderson’s brother, Hal, is a member of the class of 1987; his sister, Heidi, is a member of the class of 1994.

A history major at Princeton and an active supporter of Annual Giving, Anderson earned his MBA at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill before moving to New York City, where he now lives his wife, Julie, and their two young children.

The gift is part of the University’s $1.75 billion fundraising campaign, “Aspire: A Plan for Princeton.”