In December, Marnix E. Heersink, MD committed an additional $5 million to his transformational $95 million gift that named the UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine in 2021, bringing the total gift to $100 million. The gift was already the single largest philanthropic commitment in university history.

The Heersink gift will ultimately support the creation of as many as 20 new endowed positions to enhance the recruitment of elite faculty. In the first year of the gift alone, the Heersink School of Medicine established and awarded five Heersink Endowed Chairs and one Heersink Endowed Professorship.

Heersink is a Dothan eye surgeon, and entrepreneur who has served on the boards of the Alabama/Florida Council of Boy Scouts and the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. His wife, Mary Heersink, is a longtime member of the Heersink School of Medicine’s Board of Visitors, as well as the Advisory Board of the Master of Science in Global Health Program, a joint initiative among McMaster University in Canada, Maastricht University in the Netherlands, Manipal University in India and Thomassat University in Thailand.