# UC San Diego Foundation

UC San Diego Foundation is an Endowment / Foundation based in La Jolla, United States.

## Overview

- **Organization type:** Endowment / Foundation
- **Headquarters:** La Jolla, United States
- **Region:** North America
- **Address:** La Jolla, CA, United States
- **Founded:** 1992
- **Assets under management:** <$50M (Altss estimate)
- **Website:** foundation.ucsd.edu

## Regulatory record

- **Reports private funds:** No

## About

The UC San Diego Foundation was established in 1972 to accept, administer, and steward private gifts supporting the university's educational, scientific, and public service programs. The Board of Trustees, chaired by Leo Spiegel of Spiegel Capital Management and including Westcore Properties founder Marc Brutten, acts as a liaison between the university and its donor community. The foundation has grown into a permanent endowment structure managing assets in excess of $1.66 billion, a figure that places it among the larger public university-affiliated foundations in the United States, though the institution does not publicly disclose a precise AUM figure. The investment portfolio reflects the breadth of a modern university with a top-ranked engineering school and biomedical ecosystem. Asset class exposure spans private equity, venture capital, private credit, hedge funds, real estate, infrastructure, commodities, and intellectual property. Within venture, the foundation targets early-stage companies in ClimateTech, Digital Health, Robotics, and Energy Transition, mirroring the university's technology transfer pipeline out of the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The foundation also operates a cryptocurrency gift program and holds specialized assets including the Stuart Collection — a public art portfolio of site-specific installations across the UC San Diego campus. Geographically, the foundation deploys capital across North America, Europe, Asia, Oceania, South America, and Africa. The board draws heavily on San Diego's technology and real estate investor base, with trustees participating in governance networks such as the National Association of Corporate Directors and the local Corporate Director's Forum. May 2026: The foundation opened nominations for its 2026 Excellence in Stewardship Awards, signaling an emphasis on donor accountability and transparency through tools like the STAR dashboard for financial access. The foundation also established the Halıcıoğlu School of Data Science and Computing, deepening the campus's computational research infrastructure that feeds deal flow. The foundation's structural differentiator is its intellectual property adjacency. Unlike a typical university endowment that operates as a funded grantor, the UC San Diego Foundation accepts and manages specialized real assets and cultural property — from the Sun God installation to the Fallen Star structure at the Jacobs School — alongside a direct venture portfolio. This blurs the line between development office, art museum, and active investment office, placing the foundation in a small cohort of university affiliates that manage tangible scientific and cultural assets as part of the capital base.

## Sectors

- ClimateTech
- Digital Health
- Energy Transition & Renewables
- Healthcare Services
- Robotics & Automation
- Biotech & Genomics
- Mobility & Transportation

## People

- Sandra Timmons — Chair of the Board of Trustees
- Pradeep K. Khosla — Chancellor of UC San Diego and President of the Foundation
- Leo Spiegel — Immediate Past Chair; Managing Partner at Spiegel Capital Management
- Pelin Thorogood — Vice Chair; Executive Chairman and Co-founder of Radicle Science
- Ernest Rady — Trustee Emeritus; Executive Chairman of American Assets Trust
- Marc Brutten — Trustee Emeritus; Founder and Executive Chairman of Westcore Properties

## Questions

### Is UC San Diego Foundation's portfolio limited to the university's endowment pool?

No. Beyond the main endowment, the foundation manages specific investment vehicles including the Intermediate Total Return Fund and the UC General Endowment Pool Real Estate Portfolio. The real estate arm holds direct commercial properties like Link at Torrey Pines and Element in San Diego. The foundation also oversees related structures such as the UC San Diego Student Foundation.

### Does the foundation make direct investments or only fund commitments?

The foundation does both. It allocates through fund-of-funds structures and also holds direct commercial real estate assets in San Diego. Its strategy tags include venture capital at seed, early, and late stages as well as distressed debt, but the exact split between direct and fund commitments has not been publicly detailed.

### How much capital does UC San Diego Foundation manage?

The foundation does not publicly disclose a consolidated AUM figure. Altss estimates the total pool at below $50 million based on available structure and deployment data. This figure should be treated as an estimate rather than a confirmed disclosure.

### What is the foundation's relationship with the Rady School of Management?

Ernest Rady, a trustee emeritus of the foundation and executive chairman of American Assets Trust, is the namesake benefactor of UC San Diego's Rady School of Management. The foundation's governance and the business school share an intersection at the board level, though the foundation operates as a separate legal entity managing philanthropic and endowment assets.

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- [Rosenberg Library Association](https://altss.com/profile/rosenberg-library-association)
- [Women's Foundation of Minnesota](https://altss.com/profile/women-s-foundation-of-minnesota)

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Last updated: 2026-07-06T00:39:22.502Z

Canonical page: https://altss.com/profile/uc-san-diego-foundation

Maintained by Altss — https://altss.com — methodology: https://altss.com/methodology