of transportation, including economics, multimodal systems, traffic congestion relief, transportation policy, materials, structures, transit, environmental impacts, driver behavior, land use, geometric

 in 2010 as part of an effort to increase medical research at the university and establish a medical research complex, and associated medical school, in the city of Austin.[74][75]
UT operates several major auxiliary research centers. The world's third-largest telescope, the Hobby-Eberly Telescope, and three other large telescopes are part of UT's McDonald Observatory, 450 miles (720 km) west of Austin.[76][77] The university manages nearly 300 acres (1.2 km2) of biological field laboratories, including the Brackenridge Field Laboratory in Austin. The Center for Agile Technology focuses on software development challenges.[78] The J.J. Pickle Research Campus (PRC) is home to the Texas Advanced Computing Center which operates the Ranger supercomputer, one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world,[79] as well as the Microelectronics Research Center which houses micro- and nanoelectronics research and features a 15,000 square foot (1,400 m2) cleanroom for device fabrication. Founded in 1946, UT's Applied Research Laboratories at the PRC has been responsible for the development or testing of the vast majority of high-frequency sonar equipment used by the Navy, and in 2007, was granted a research contract by the Navy funded up to $928 million over ten years.[80][81] The Center for Transportation Research UT Austin is a nationally recognized research institution focusing on transportation research, education, and public service. Established in 1963 as the Center for Highway Research, its current and ongoing projects address virtually all aspects of transportation, including economics, multimodal systems, traffic congestion relief, transportation policy, materials, structures, transit, environmental impacts, driver behavior, land use, geometric design, accessibility, and pavements.[82]
In 2013, UT announced the naming of the O'Donnell Building for Applied Computational Engineering and Sciences. The O'Donnell Foundation of Dallas, headed by Peter O'Donnell and his wife, Edith Jones O'Donnell, has given more than $135 million to UT alone between 1983 and 2013. UT President William C. Powers declared the O'Donnells "among the greatest supporters of the University of Texas in its 130-year history. Their transformative generosity is based on the belief in our power to change society for the better."[83] In 2008, O'Donnell pledged $18 million to finance the hiring of UT faculty members undertaking research in the use of mathematics, computers, and multiple scientific disciplines; his pledge was matched by W. A. "Tex" Moncrief, Jr., a oilman and philanthropist from Fort Worth.[84]
Endowment[edit]


The Norman Hackerman Building
Main article: Permanent University Fund
The university has an endowment of $7.2 billion, out of the $16.11 billion (according to 2008 estimates) available to the University of Texas System. This figure reflects the fact that the school has the largest endowment of any public university in the nation.[citation needed]
Thirty percent of the university's endowment comes from Permanent University Fund (PUF), with nearly $15 billion in assets as of 2007.[85][86] Proceeds from lands appropriated in 1839 and 1876, as well as oil monies, comprise the majority of PUF. At one time, the PUF was the chief source of income for Texas' two university systems, The University of Texas System and the Texas A&M University System; today, however, its revenues account for less than 10 percent of the uni