David and Nancy Auth-Washington Research Foundation Endowed Chair for Restorative Burn Surgery

Est. 2008

The David and Nancy Auth-Washington Research Foundation Endowed Chair for Restorative Burn Surgery was created in 2008 to enhance the University’s ability to recruit and retain distinguished faculty in restorative burn surgery at the UW Medicine Burn Center at Harborview Medical Center. The Burn Center specializes in burn treatment and rehabilitation as well as in the treatment and rehabilitation of other large wounds.

It is the intention of the Auths and Washington Research Foundation (WRF) that the work associated with this chair will help patients re-enter society without physical impairment or embarrassment. To this end, distributions from the endowment will help underwrite chair holders’ research in two primary areas: patient outcomes after burn injury or other large-wound traumas, and the development of novel approaches to optimize outcomes for these patients. Distributions from the endowment also will support other work that has an impact upon the care and outcomes — both cosmetic and functional — of patients treated at the Burn Center.

David C. Auth, Ph.D., P.E., has improved countless lives through his creative development of new, minimally invasive surgical technologies and through his gifts to UW Medicine and the University of Washington. A physicist, engineer and entrepreneur who holds more than 50 U.S. and foreign patents, Dr. Auth is vocal about his belief in the empowering aspects of a university education. “The leveling effect of higher education is wonderful,” he says. “Kids from poor families can attend a university like the UW and emerge with an education that permits them to be leaders. A university education is the greatest tool for success, and we should get that message out to as many individuals and communities as we can.”

Washington Research Foundation’s mission is to capture and enhance the value of intellectual property arising from research institutions to support research and scholarship in Washington state. Like the Auths, WRF has been a longtime and committed supporter of the University of Washington.

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