May 2025
University of Arizona received a donation of $2 million from philanthropist Eugene Jhong for the establishment of an endowed chair to support consciousness studies.
The new academic position will be called The Thomas G. Bever and Stuart R. Hameroff Chair in Consciousness Studies, according to Philanthropy News Digest.
Bever directs the university’s consciousness minor program studies and the Language and Cognition Lab, and Hameroff is a professor emeritus in anesthesiology and psychology, and a co-founder of the university’s Center for Consciousness Studies.
Hameroff is more broadly known for co-developing the ‘Orch-OR’ theory of consciousness together with Nobel Laureate in physics Roger Penrose. The theory posits that consciousness is a derivative of quantum processes in microtubules, a cylinder-shaped cell structure in neurons.
It is not the first time Jhong, a retired Google software developer, donated money to University of Arizona meant for research in fields that span the border between science and spirituality. One of his previous donation’s established the consciousness minor program, and another million-dollar gift was to support interdisciplinary research on the origins of life and consciousness.
Anders Bolling
