INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY RECEIVES $25 MILLION

Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences Donates Largest Cash Gift in the Institute's History

September 23, 2005, Princeton, N.J. – The Institute for Advanced Study today announced that it has received $25 million from the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences. The unrestricted cash gift is the largest donation since the founding of the Institute, and will be named The Karoly Simonyi Memorial Endowment Fund, honoring Charles Simonyi's late father.

Charles Simonyi, a Trustee of the Institute since 1997 and President of the Corporation since 2003, established the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences in 2003. Dr. Simonyi is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Intentional Software Corporation in Bellevue, Washington, a company he founded in 2002. In addition to the Institute, the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences has donated to the Seattle Symphony, the Seattle Public Library, Seattle’s Museum of Flight, Russian National Orchestra and the Metropolitan Opera Broadcast. Its goal is to help provide "Access to Excellence."

Peter Goddard, Director of the Institute, states, "We are immensely grateful to the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences for this gift to the Institute, which constitutes a landmark in the Institute's history. Charles is a remarkably enlightened person, deeply committed to the Institute and its objectives. This extraordinarily generous donation will play an essential part in ensuring that the Institute is able to remain committed to its mission of advancing research in the most fundamental aspects of the sciences and humanities through the work of its outstanding Faculty and the distinguished scholars who come to the Institute each year."

"I believe that the Institute performs a crucial role in nurturing and promoting original thinking and scholarship," states Charles Simonyi. "It is an honor for me to be so closely engaged with the Institute, its Faculty, and its Members, who come from around the world to pursue their influential research. The Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences considers this gift to the Institute important for fostering the future practical advancements that will result from intellectual inquiry, and it is thrilling to be part of such a worthy endeavor."

The Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences $25 million gift brings the total gifts and pledges to the Institute this year to more than $50 million. This figure includes additional, significant gifts received from supporters of the Institute, and it represents half of an initial goal of $100 million established by the Institute to strengthen its endowment and to fund existing programs. These gifts continue the strong legacy of support established by the Institute's founders, Louis Bamberger and his sister Caroline Bamberger Fuld. The sequence of Bamberger/Fuld gifts, made between 1930 and their deaths in 1944, amounted to more than $16 million and created the foundation for the Institute's endowment.

Dr. Simonyi has been actively involved with the Institute since 1996. He endowed the Charles Simonyi Professorship in Theoretical Physics, currently held by physicist Edward Witten of the Institute's School of Natural Sciences. Dr. Simonyi also donated $5 million to the Institute's School of Mathematics to assist it in providing the financial independence to select the very best Members, many from abroad. Simonyi Hall, the building that houses the School of Mathematics, was dedicated in May 2000 in recognition of Dr. Simonyi's participation in the life of the Institute community and his commitment to the work that takes place here. Since 2001, he has served as Chairman of the Academic Affairs Committee.

About the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences
Established in 2003 and based in Seattle, the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences is a $75 million foundation to support the arts, sciences and education. Its inaugural grant in 2004 was a $10 million gift to the Seattle Symphony. When formed, the foundation aimed to distribute 10 percent of the principal each year over the next 10 years "to worthy organizations that demonstrate excellence in the fields of arts, sciences and education."

Susan Hutchison, who has been the Executive Director of the Fund since its inception, stated, "This grant to the Institute for Advanced Study is the largest to be awarded by the Foundation and is in recognition of Dr. Simonyi's deep involvement with and respect for the Institute."

About the Institute
The Institute for Advanced Study is a private, independent academic institution located in Princeton, N.J. Work at the Institute takes place in four Schools: Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social Science. Esteemed past Faculty have included Albert Einstein, who was at the Institute from 1933 until his death in 1955, and luminaries such as Kurt Gödel, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Erwin Panofsky, Homer A. Thompson, John von Neumann, George Kennan and Hermann Weyl. A permanent Faculty of 25 eminent scholars guides the work of the Schools, and each year awards fellowships to some 190 visiting Members, from about one hundred universities and research institutions throughout the world. The Institute’s more than 5,000 former Members hold positions of intellectual and scientific leadership in the United States and abroad. Some 21 Nobel laureates, and 32 out of 44 Fields Medalists, have been Institute Faculty or Members. Many winners of the Wolf or MacArthur prizes have also been affiliated with the Institute.

The Institute has no formal links to other educational institutions. However, since its founding, it has enjoyed close, collaborative ties with Princeton University; Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; and other nearby institutions. The Institute’s 800-acre site, the majority of which has been permanently conserved, includes the Institute Woods, farm fields, and wetlands. These lands form a key link in a network of green spaces in central New Jersey, and provide a tranquil environment for members of the community and Institute scholars. Information about the Institute and its programs can be found at www.ias.edu.

About the Simonyi Family
This landmark $25 million gift to the Institute is named in honor of Charles Simonyi's father, Karoly Simonyi, an esteemed and beloved professor of electrical engineering who taught science to generations of Hungarian scientists and engineers. The Karoly Simonyi Memorial Endowment Fund at the Institute for Advanced Study is so named to honor the values embodied and espoused by Charles Simonyi's father, who believed in the pursuit of knowledge, the excellence of and dedication to scholarship, and the intricate connection between the humanities and the natural sciences. One of ten children from a small village in the Hungarian countryside, Karoly Simonyi excelled in school and went on to a long career in teaching, including 25 years at the Technical University of Budapest. An accomplished teacher, author and scholar, he wrote many textbooks, including Foundations of Electrical Engineering and Electron Physics, both of which have been published in multiple editions and translated into a half dozen languages.

Karoly Simonyi sought refuge in his work after the tragedy of World War II and its aftermath of Soviet occupation of Hungary. Political difficulties were unavoidable given his moral character, and after the failed revolution of 1956, he had to leave his post at the Physics Research Institute and eventually returned full time to teaching. After Charles Simonyi emigrated to the Unites States with his father's encouragement, the communist authorities stripped Karoly Simonyi of his professorship in retaliation. This event, while disheartening, enabled Karoly Simonyi to focus on lecturing informally about the history of science. This rewarding work resulted in The Cultural History of Physics (1978), a book that traces the development of physics from antiquity to the present against the backdrop of the evolution of thought in philosophy, theology and the arts. Published in three editions in Hungarian and German, the book brought a new and significant appreciation of science, history, and the humanities to a broad readership. Karoly Simonyi died in Budapest in 2001 at the age of 85. He is survived by his wife Susan and their sons Charles and Tamas.

Charles Simonyi earned a B.S. in engineering and mathematics from University of California at Berkeley in 1972, and his Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University in 1977. He worked at the renowned Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) from 1972 until 1980, where he did most of the design and the critical implementation work on Bravo, the first WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editor, and led the team that built it. In 1981, Dr. Simonyi joined Microsoft to start the development of microcomputer application programs, and was responsible for hiring and managing teams who developed such well-known programs as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Multiplan and others. For this work, he was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the Hungarian Academy of Science. He left Microsoft in 2002 to start the Intentional Software Corporation, which aims to improve software productivity.