Alumnus honors wife through gift

Global business leader, engineer, and UB alumnus Hatim A. Tyabji ’69 has pledged a $1 million bequest to establish an endowed engineering professorship – the Durriya H. Tyabji Professor of Computer Science and Engineering – in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, in honor of his wife.

Attributing his success to the support he has received from her and their two sons, Abizer and Salim, Tyabji explains that for him the gift “represents a very personal statement on the paramount importance of the family." He adds that it is a tribute to his wife’s “lifelong interest in the achievement of excellence through education.”

His wife, Durriya Tyabji, says she is honored by the gift and “excited by its potential for UB and for the students who will benefit from the research and leadership that such a professor will bring to the engineering school.”

Currently chair of Datacard, Tyabji continues to be an active business leader serving on a variety of corporate boards, as well as on the Dean’s Advisory Council for UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He received the UB Engineering Dean’s Award in 1995.