Earlier this year, Tad and Dianne Taube of Taube Philanthropies donated $14.5 million to research initiatives on addiction and concussion in youth at the Stanford School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. $9.5 million of the donation will launch the Tad and Dianne Taube Youth Addiction Initiative, led by Laura Roberts, chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the School of Medicine.

According to Taube, the cumulative donation is the first of its kind to be entirely dedicated to research on youth mental health issues. “This gift is unique because it focuses on teens and young adults, an under-explored and under-represented group in the medical literature,” said associate professor of psychiatry Anna Lembke.

Bay Area businessman and philanthropist Tad Taube B.A. ’54, M.A. ’57 is the chairman of Taube Philanthropies and board president emeritus of the Koret Foundation, an organization that supports education, health, Jewish life and heritage preservation initiatives. Taube said he seeks to use philanthropy as a tool to increase equality of opportunity and improve human welfare.

Spearheaded by associate professor of neurosurgery Gerald Grant, assistant professor of bioengineering David Camarillo and Graduate School of Education lecturer Piya Sorcar, the concussion initiative’s overarching goal is prevention. According to the researchers, the team has made significant progress in addressing this objective over the past decade. Grant and Camarillo developed “smart” mouth guards for athletes that serve as a measuring device to disseminate the physical forces at play that are likely to cause concussions. Often, athletes receive blows to the head, but the resulting concussions are difficult to detect and diagnose.

The donation will also focus on improving access to mental health support for Stanford students, including organizing better peer support and establishing recovery houses on campus.

Read the full article about Taube philanthropy by Mini Ruda at The Stanford Daily.