Established in 2011 by Thomas and Susan Abraham in honor of their son, Anthony Thomas Abraham W’12, the Anthony Thomas Abraham Collection Endowment Fund supports acquisitions in the field of energy infrastructure.  Because research in energy infrastructure encompasses a wide array of academic disciplines, the fund allows Penn Libraries to provide targeted support for this rapidly growing area of interdisciplinary research on campus.

For example, within the School of Engineering, active areas of research addressing aspects of energy infrastructure include biofuels, materials for solar energy conversion, fuel cell design, and low power devices.  Much of this work is highlighted on the Pennergy (Penn Center for Energy Innovation) website: www.energy.upenn.edu.  The Anthony Thomas Abraham Fund also supports VIPER (Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research), www.viper.upenn.edu, a joint degree program offered by the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the School of Arts & Sciences that provides instruction and research opportunities to undergraduate students. 

With this interdisciplinary focus in mind, the Anthony Thomas Abraham Fund is shared through a collaborative relationship between the Engineering, Lippincott and Fine Arts Libraries, for purchasing materials ranging from science and engineering, city and regional planning, economics, business, social policy, and architecture.