Northwestern University Receives $121 Million Gift For Biomedical Research, Kellogg School Of Management

Northwestern University announced on Tuesday that it had received a $121 million gift from Kimberly K. Querrey and the Louis Simpson Trust, which will be divided between the Feinberg School of Medicine, the Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics, and the Kellogg School of Management.

With this latest gift, Querrey and her late husband, Louis A. Simpson have given Northwestern more than $379 million, supporting several areas and programs at the university.

The majority of the gift ($100 million) will go toward four initiatives at the Feinberg School of Medicine.

• $64 million will be used to construct a new research tower that will expand the Louis A. Simpson and Kimberly K. Querrey Biomedical Research Center and, according to the university, make it the largest academic biomedical research facility in the world.
• $25 million will create and endow the Simpson Querrey Lung Institute for Translational Science, which will focus on research discoveries in pulmonary medicine.
• Another $10 million will create and endow the Simpson Querrey Center for Neurovascular Sciences, dedicated to research and therapies for neurovascular diseases.
• $1 million will support the Kimberly Prize in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, established this year by Querrey to honor Simpson. Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna was the winner of the inaugural $250,000 Kimberly Prize, recognized for her role in developing CRISPR-Cas9, a genome editing technique that allows scientists to rewrite DNA in all kinds of cells with high levels of precision.

In addition, $11 million of the Querrey/Simpson gift will go to the Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics, which is an interdisciplinary effort to develop bio-compatible forms of electronics that can be applied to various medical treatments.

The third part of the gift – $10 million – will be used to support executive education at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, where Simpson had served as senior fellow, adjunct professor of finance and member of the school’s Asset Management Practicum advisory council.

Northwestern University President Michael H. Schill called Querrey and Simpson “two of Northwestern’s greatest champions,” adding that “Northwestern’s rapid progress over the last decade simply would not have been possible without them. This new gift continues their legacy of visionary support, and the impact will be far reaching.”

“Our philanthropic investments focus on helping people,” Querrey said. “Lou and I often discussed the importance of improving the quality of life, particularly for those facing medical challenges. The physicians, scientists and engineers at Northwestern do groundbreaking, innovative work, realizing our vision of positively affecting people’s lives.”

Together, Kimberly Querrey along with Lou Simpson, who died on January 8, 2022, have made contributions to Northwestern that have supported numerous initiatives in biomedical research, the McCormick School of Engineering, the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern athletics, and several other programs, scholarships, endowed faculty positions and capital projects at the University.

Early in his career, Simpson was a partner at Stein, Roe and Farnham, a Chicago investment firm. Later, he was president and CEO of Western Asset Management. For 17 years, Simpson served as president and CEO of the Geico Corporation, the auto insurer owned by Warren Buffett-led Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Nationally known as a very savvy investor, Simpson served as chair of Gulf Shore Private Capital LLC, established in 2019. Prior to that, he was chair of the money management firm SQ Advisors LLC from 2011 to 2019.

Simpson also served as a director of several publicly traded companies including AT&T, Chesapeake Energy, COHR Inc., Comcast, Geico, HNC Software, Magma Power, MediaOne, Potomac Electric Power, National Bank of Washington, ResMed, Science Applications International Corporation, Salomon Inc., Thompson BPE, U.S. West and Western Assets Funds.

He served as vice chair of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and also taught at Princeton University as an economics instructor from 1961 to 1962.

Kimberly Querrey is president and CEO of Gulf Shore Private Capital, a family investment firm. She joined the Northwestern Board of Trustees in 2015 and chairs the Innovation and Entrepreneurship subcommittee. Querrey also is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the board and executive committee of the Big Shoulders Fund.