Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation

12/12/2025

📣 We’re delighted to announce that Aileen S Lee has been appointed president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, effective January 1, 2026.

Aileen has dedicated more than 20 years to advancing the foundation’s mission — leading efforts in environmental conservation, science, and strengthening the character of the Bay Area. Her appointment marks both continuity and renewal as we build upon the legacy of our founders, Gordon and Betty Moore.

Please join us in congratulating Aileen as she leads the foundation into an exciting new chapter of impact and innovation.

Read the full announcement on moore.org: https://www.moore.org/article-detail?newsUrlName=aileen-s-lee-named-president-of-the-gordon-and-betty-moore-foundation

12/09/2025

We’re delighted to announce that Aileen S Lee has been appointed president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, effective January 1, 2026.

Aileen has dedicated more than 20 years to advancing the foundation’s mission — leading efforts in environmental conservation, science, and strengthening the character of the Bay Area. Her appointment marks both continuity and renewal as we build upon the legacy of our founders, Gordon and Betty Moore.

Please join us in congratulating Aileen as she leads the foundation into an exciting new chapter of impact and innovation.

Read the full announcement:

Palo Alto, Calif. — [December 9, 2025] — The Board of Trustees of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announced today the appointment of Aileen S Lee as the f…

08/07/2025

🦪 Researchers at the found that a newly discovered virus is associated with mass mortality of Pacific oysters — the most widely farmed shellfish worldwide.

Mass oyster die-offs have previously been associated with specific viruses, particular bacteria, warming waters, increased ocean acidity and other factors, but definitive causal links are difficult to establish. The UBC researchers collected 33 oysters from two farms in British Columbia during a mass die-off in 2020, plus 26 wild oysters from 10 nearby sites, and conducted analyses to see which viruses were there. The study revealed the presence of a novel virus, Pacific Oyster Nidovirus 1 (PONV1), in 20 of the dead and dying farmed oysters — but not in the healthy wild oysters — suggesting a possible link between the virus and mortality. Additional research will be important to carry out to study this possibility. 🦠

Along with enabling potential solutions for oyster growers, the PONV1 genome sequence revealed new insights into viral diversity and evolution. PONV1 is an especially large RNA virus (as opposed to a DNA virus) that belongs to a little-known but major new group of viruses. “This discovery offers a rare window into the possible evolutionary mechanisms that enable genome expansion in RNA viruses,” said Kevin Xu Zhong, a research associate at The University of British Columbia.

We’re excited to support this important scientific discovery that holds potential to support the well-being of coastal communities.

🔗 Read the full paper in .physorg (link in bio).



📸: Amy M. Chan

11/25/2024

At the recent Science Philanthropy Alliance Members’ Meeting, we had the opportunity to join our partners at for a “bioblitz” at Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve in Woodside, California. Our fellow colleagues in science philanthropy headed out to the field to explore and capture as many species as possible within the designated location and time period for the bioblitz.

Thank you to iNaturalist executive director Scott Loarie for welcoming the group and showing them how their contributions can contribute to science learning. We’re also grateful for the amazing iNaturalist team who led our bioblitz! 

🌿 Using the iNaturalist app for a bioblitz is a great way to engage the public in science and nature. It empowers anyone with a smartphone to explore nature and contribute to scientific research. 

🦋 Your observations can contribute to science, too! Learn how at inaturalist.org. 

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11/21/2024

📣 Welcome, Dr. Pardis Sabeti! 
We are excited to announce that Dr. Pardis Sabeti has joined our board of trustees!

A distinguished geneticist and professor, Dr. Sabeti is known for her innovative research in infectious disease genomics and her pioneering role in developing rapid diagnostic tools for epidemic outbreaks. 

Dr. Sabeti is a core institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and a leader in the Broad’s Infectious Disease and Microbiome Program. She also holds appointments as professor at the Center for Systems Biology and the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, a professor in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Disease at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. 

Her advances in computational genetics, collaborative success in establishing counterpart labs, and commitment to informal science education in the context of pandemics will bring added value to our work at the Moore Foundation.

10/29/2024

At , Bolivia has signed a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) to build a Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) initiative.

🌎 This Bolivia PFP focuses on freshwater, forests, and communities, and supports 18% of the country’s territory covered by the national protected area system as well as three Indigenous protected areas.

🍃 Emphasizing the importance of Indigenous leadership, the MOU recognizes Bolivia’s Indigenous territories and 200,000 people living in protected areas as true partners and co-managers.

To help achieve this long-term financial stability for Bolivia, the Moore Foundation is collaborating with the Ministry of Environment and Water of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, World Wildlife Fund, the Foundation for the Development of the National Protected Areas System (FUNDESNAP), the National Protected Areas Service (SERNAP), The Nature Conservancy, and Wildlife Conservation Society.

📸Images courtesy of

09/18/2024

Meet our 2024 Moore Inventor Fellows! This year’s cohort display bold curiosity and a passion for applying science to better our world.

The work proposed by these five scientist-inventors will:
🥼 Invent a technology that could bring modern, point-of-care medical diagnostics to remote and under-resourced areas of our planet.
⚡Build ultra-thin oscillators that could advance telecommunications and medical imaging.
🌊Invent technology that can image the ocean floor in much the same way telescopes image the cosmos.
🔋Develop electrically powered catalysts to synthesize epoxides — that will uncover a path to safe and sustainable chemical synthesis.
🧬Observe the motors that walk on DNA and RNA – and learn how they turn chemical energy into physical motion.

Slide 1: Ved Chirayath, Ph.D., National Geographic Explorer; Vetlesen Professor of Earth Sciences and Aeronautical Engineering, University of Miami
Slide 2: Julia Mundy, Ph.D., John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Natural Sciences and of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University
Slide 3: Andrew Laszlo, Ph.D., Research Assistant Professor, Department of Physics, University of Washington
Slide 4: Saad Bhamla, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Slide 5: Karthish Manthiram, Ph.D., Professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry; William H. Hurt Scholar, California Institute of Technology

03/31/2023

We are grateful for the outpouring of support and remembrances of our co-founder, Gordon Moore. At the Moore Foundation, there is no better way to honor his legacy than by continuing with the work he and Betty entrusted to us: creating positive outcomes for future generations. Thank you, Gordon.

03/25/2023

“Those of us who have met and worked with Gordon will forever be inspired by his wisdom, humility and generosity,” reflected Moore Foundation president Harvey Fineberg. “Though he never aspired to be a household name, Gordon’s vision and his life’s work enabled the phenomenal innovation and technological development that shape our everyday lives. Yet those historic achievements are only part his legacy. His and Betty’s generosity as philanthropists will shape the world for generations to come.”

In memoriam: https://bit.ly/3LMVqUr