The Eye & Ear Foundation of Pittsburgh is honored to announce that Daniel G. and Carole L. Kamin are supporting the new Pittsburgh Hearing Institute in the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine with a $1 million gift for the new Daniel G. and Carole L. Kamin Endowed Research Fund for Hearing Loss.
The Pittsburgh Hearing Institute, which will eventually reside on the sixth floor of the UPMC Mercy Pavilion, will change the face of hearing research and clinical care here in Pittsburgh and around the globe. Peter Santa Maria, MD, PhD, Professor of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, who recently came from Stanford, will lead the Institute. He and José P. Zevallos, MD, MPH, FACS, Chair of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery, are recruiting individuals with renowned expertise in the field to develop treatments for different kinds of hearing loss and hearing-loss related conditions. The Pittsburgh Hearing Institute will also be training leaders around the globe– with a focus on the developing world — on techniques that will help people with common conditions that affect learning and career development, like otitis media.
Dan and Carole Kamin are longtime supporters of the Eye & Ear Foundation. Their son, Michael, recently joined his mother as a member of the Board of Directors. Additionally, Dan and Carole were one of the first principal gifts to the Vision Institute, naming the lobby and atrium of the building that opened to great acclaim in 2023.
The Kamins are renowned philanthropists who were honored in November 2024 with the Outstanding Philanthropists award by the Association of Fundraising Professionals Western Pennsylvania Chapter because of their many donations. One of these donations is a $65 million transformational gift to the Carnegie Science Center. In recognition of their gift, the Science Center will be named in their honor.
Their generosity has been crucial to many Pittsburgh organizations, including the Carnegie Museum, Heinz History Center, Pittsburgh Symphony, Boy Scouts of Western PA, and the Center for Research and Practice in Addiction and Recovery at UPMC Mercy, which helps individuals with recovery from opioid addictions.