Ortega Endowment For Astronomy And Astrophysics

Type

General Endowment

Year Established

2006

Purpose

Fund the Ortega Professorship in Astronomy, the Ortega Fellowship for graduate students in Astronomy, the Ortega Scholarships for undergraduate students in Astronomy, and the Ortega Lecture Series. (GF000127)

Description

History

James M. Ortega was born in Havana, Cuba in 1932.  He is best known as the author of numerous books on information science and computers.

James spent part of his career serving in the U.S. Air Force, as a data analyst. He was a mathematician and programmer for Sandia Laboratories and Bellcomm Inc.  In 1964 he began teaching for the University of Maryland at College Park.  From 1969-1973 he worked for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Langley Research Center, in Hampton, VA, where he was the director of the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering.

He’s held faculty positions and served as department head at North Carolina State University, and was the Charles Henderson Professor of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science at the University of Virginia heading the department of applied mathematics and computer science.

From 1979-84, he served as associate dean of engineering and applied science, and from 1984-89, as director of the Institute for Parallel Computation.  He also was President of Awesome Computing Inc., from 1986-91.

James served as a visiting professor for the University of California, San Diego, and was a member of the U.S. Army Basic Research Committee for the National Research Council. He also held positions with the National Bureau of Standards, the National Science Foundation, and the Science and Technology Centers Advisory Committee.

In 2004, James Ortega gave $150,000 to the Florida Institute of Technology for a new 32-inch telescope that allowed the university to collect nearly twice the amount of light and access to double the number of objects in space. The telescope was the largest in Florida and was named the Ortega Telescope. His wife, Sara, and he later funded the Ortega Endowment. 

In October 2009, their estate gift, totaling nearly $2.5 million established a professorship in Astronomy, as well as support for the Ortega Fellowship for graduate students in Astronomy, the Ortega Scholarships for undergraduate students in Astronomy, and the Ortega Lecture Series.

If you would like to contribute to this fund, please go to Panther Fund and use the "other" designation to identify that you wish to give to this named endowment fund.