Ann Lurie resides in Chicago where she is president of Lurie Investments; president and treasurer of the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Foundation; and president of Africa Infectious Disease Village Clinics, Inc., a US based charity. At the University of Michigan, she co-endowed the Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies. Additional gifts to the University include the Robert H. Lurie Engineering Center, named for her late husband; the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Tower; an endowed faculty chair at the College of Engineering; and major funding for the Biomedical Engineering Center and Solid State Laboratory. In addition, Ms. Lurie established the Marion Elizabeth Blue Professorship in Children and Families at the School of Social Work along with a matching challenge grant program to encourage the establishment of fellowships. In 2003, she was awarded the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.

A member of the Northwestern University Board of Trustees, Ms. Lurie endowed the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University where she provides continued funding and advocacy. She endowed two chairs in research at the Cancer Center and committed the lead funding for the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center at Northwestern University, which houses the Cancer Center’s administration and laboratory space dedicated to genetic and cancer research. At Children’s Memorial Hospital, she endowed a chair in cancer cell biology; provided the funding for the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Research; and recently, pledged $100 M to help build a new and relocated clinical facility to be dedicated in 2012.

Ann was co-founder of Gilda’s Club, Chicago, and she endowed the Lurie Garden and provided funding for the Joan and Irving J. Harris Dance Theater, both at Millennium Park. Among countless other gifts to Chicago, she gave the lead funding to launch the Greater Chicago Food Depository Campaign; permanently endowed a Christmas party for needy children and low-income seniors at St. Vincent DePaul Center; and financed the lead poisoning prevention and triage nursing programs of the Infant Welfare Society.

She founded and personally oversees the operation of AID Village Clinics, a communicable disease initiative offering comprehensive medical clinics for the Maasai in rural southeastern Kenya. Her global commitment to philanthropy is further demonstrated by her support of the UK charity, Riders for Health, which creates and sustains health care delivery systems in Africa. In cooperation with ONE Love Africa, she funded construction of thirty rural schools in Ethiopia. She supports Ancient Egypt Research Associates, a US-based archaeological excavation on the Giza plateau; the Trust for African Rock Art; conservation, education, reforestation, and health initiatives of the Maasailand Preservation Trust; an HIV/AIDS initiative on the Burma/Chinese border; and the WE-ACTx pediatric care program for HIV/AIDS patients in Rwanda. She provides personal transport and assistance to a Children’s Memorial Hospital medical team who perform corrective surgery on children suffering from liver disorders.

Ms. Lurie was born in Florida and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing from the University of Florida. She and Bob Lurie had six children, now ages 22-32. Before starting a family, she worked in public health and pediatric intensive care nursing in Florida and at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

In recent years, she has been honored with the Distinguished Philanthropist Award by the Chicago Association of Fundraising Professionals and the Jane Addams Making History Award from the Chicago History Museum. She has been recognized as one of the nation’s leading philanthropists by Worth Magazine, Chicago Sun Times, Satisfaction Magazine of the Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Business Chicago, Business Week Magazine and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.