Ross Stevens, the founder, and CEO of Stone Ridge Holdings Group, has donated $100 million to the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The donation will assist the Booth School’s Ph.D. program, which will be renamed the Stevens Doctoral Program in honor of the gift. “Thanks to Ross’s extraordinary generosity and bold vision, the Stevens Doctoral Program is poised to accelerate and broaden the impact of its scholars now and long into the future,” said Madhav Rajan, dean of Chicago Booth and the George Pratt Shultz Professor of Accounting, in the university’s announcement of the gift.
The first doctoral business program in the country was Booth’s Ph.D. program, founded in 1920. Since then, it has gained a reputation as an academic leader in business research and practice. Its alumni list includes Nobel Prize winners, deans of prestigious universities, business faculty, and significant business figures. The university claims that just 968 degrees have been conferred under the program during those 100 years. In seven different academic fields, 150 students are now enrolled in the program.
“Graduates from the first 100 years of the Booth Ph.D. Program changed the world,” Rajan continued. Building on the program’s illustrious history, which is now reinforced by Ross’s generosity, it is inspiring to consider what it can accomplish in the next 100 years.
This donation will fund improved student stipends, data and computing research support, and Stevens Fellowships for the best incoming students. Additionally, it will be used to provide students with individualized wellness, public speaking, professional development coaching programs, and round-the-clock mental health support.
The donation will also launch an alumni mentoring program that will pair current Ph.D. candidates with Ph.D. graduates in academia, government, and industry. Stevens will serve as the program’s founding co-chair with Cliff Asness, whom the university called Stevens “classmate, mentor, coauthor, and first boss.”
“I believe that, over time, the quality of a business school’s PhDs determines the quality of its faculty, which, in turn, determines the quality of the school itself,” said Stevens. “Booth is already in a powerful position, but the students of tomorrow demand we don’t rest on our laurels today. By making Booth the unquestionable destination of choice for the very best Ph.D. applicants, this gift adds rocket fuel to Booth’s long-term mission.”
Ross Stevens received his BSE in finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in 1991 before receiving his Ph.D. in finance and statistics from the Booth School of Business in 1996. Before creating Stone Ridge in 2012, where he currently serves as Chief Executive Officer, Stevens began his career at Goldman Sachs. The Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance, created in 2019 at the Wharton School, is one of his numerous charitable endeavors.
