A realized bequest from UF alumnus Dr. Leonard Adams and his wife Rachel has established The Leonard and Rachel Adams Fellowship in Memory of Ann Adams Reeder. The $500,000 fund is to be used to support research expenditures for graduate students seeking a Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering within the College of Engineering.

Dr. Leonard Adams earned his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from UF in 1956. As detailed in a 2004 edition of UF Legacies (published by the UF Office of Planned Giving), his time at UF forged deep, strong bonds with the university.

“Our time at the University of Florida was meaningful to us in many ways. We really enjoyed living in Flavet II along with a host of other young married students. Our two little sons had more playmates that one can imagine, and the young wives were able to share frustrations with each other.”
–Leonard Adams

Dr. Adams also noted that the support of the Department of Electrical Engineering (now Electrical and Computer Engineering) proved to be invaluable. He noted in Legacies that he would not have been able to pursue his Ph.D. without the help of his department and his thesis advisor, Professor E.E. Muschlitz. He described his dissertation, “On the Formation and Collimation of an Axially-Symmetrical Hollow Electron Beam,” as “most challenging,” which may very well have been an understatement.

Dr. Leonard Adams passed away in October of 2017, followed by his wife Rachel, who passed away the following March.