As Dean Thomas L. Koch announced earlier this year, the university received a financial commitment for the Robert M. Edmund Endowed Chair in Optical Sciences. The gift was proposed by UA President Emeritus John P. Schaefer and funded by the Frederick Gardner Cottrell Foundation, a nonprofit organization established by Research Corporation Technologies Inc. to provide financial support for scientific research and educational programs.

The Edmund Chair was part of an ambitious fundraising campaign by the college in 2018, funded by an initial 20 million dollar donation from James C. Wyant and his family. The gift from the Wyant family was contributed to the Distinguished Endowed Chair in Optical Sciences Fund to match a gift from a donor three to one. The goal was to ensure that each endowed chair fund had a balance of 2 million dollars. By December 2021, the campaign achieved its goal of establishing 13 new donor-nominated endowed chairs and raising 28 million dollars.

Robert Edmund, who has been in the optics and photonics field for over 50 years, has been CEO of Edmund Optics since 1997 and has served as Chairman of the Board of Directors since 1998. Edmund Optics is committed to educating the next generation of engineers through outreach programs the company developed. In 2011, Edmund dedicated the company's Edmund Scientific division to education, and now the program educates thousands of optics students each year.