McDonnell gift to neuroscience

University trustee James S. McDonnell III ’58 and his brother John F. McDonnell ’60 *62, along with the JSM Charitable Trust, have donated $30 million to establish a new center within the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, the University announced June 8. The McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience will investigate how the brain acquires, modifies, and stores information during cognitive processes.

In a news release, President Tilghman called neuroscience “one of the most exciting areas of scientific inquiry in the 21st century.” The Princeton Neuroscience Institute, created in 2005, includes faculty from molecular biology, psychology, physics, and several other departments. Beginning in 2009, the University plans to build a new complex south of Icahn Laboratory that will be home to both the institute and the psychology department.

The McDonnells previously endowed McDonnell Hall and six professorships to honor their late father, aerospace pioneer James S. McDonnell ’21