Robert Buzzelli (right) with daughter Selena and sister Mary Peirce (left).

$100,000 Bequest from Robert Buzzelli Endows Graduate Student Fellowship

A passionate philanthropist and avid sailor, Buzzelli was the son of Margaret Scripps Buzzelli and grandson of Robert Paine Scripps

Robert Anthony Buzzelli, who died at the age of 45 in fall 2007, was passionate about helping people who were struggling. Because of this, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego is establishing an endowed student fellowship in Buzzelli’s name.

A $100,000 bequest from his estate will fund The Robert Buzzelli Endowed Fellowship in Oceanography to support first-year graduate students in any area of study at Scripps Oceanography. The first fellow is expected to be named next year.

Education-related expenses for graduate students at Scripps now average $41,000 a year for books, campus fees, housing, transportation, healthcare, and more. Graduate-level scholarships, or fellowships, funded by private philanthropy help Scripps continue to attract the best and brightest students.

“The opportunity to support an exceptional student through a graduate fellowship is one of the most effective ways to nurture and support our next generation of leaders,” said UC San Diego Chancellor Marye Anne Fox.

Buzzelli, a longtime Sarasota, Fla. resident, was a great-grandson of E.W. Scripps, founder of the Scripps-Howard newspaper company, United Press International, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The avid sailor, developer, philanthropist, art center director, and devoted father to daughter Selena died unexpectedly and tragically following a heart attack.

“He was a man who had many ambitions going in many different directions and a compassion that matched his ambitions,” Buzzelli’s sister, Liz Logan, told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in October 2007. “He was involved in so many ways in giving back to the world.”

First-year fellowships are a top priority for Scripps in its efforts to train the next generation of environmental science leaders. For more information about giving to the Robert Buzzelli Endowed Fellowship in Oceanography, please contact Lawrance Bailey at 858-534-7171 or email lbailey@ucsd.edu

—Judy Piercey

October 2008