Gifts support science, students and society at ASU
Lu Baird (left) talks with ASU Biodesign Institute Executive Director Joshua LaBaer. Meeting LaBaer and learning more about the institute’s research inspired Baird to create the $1.7 million Baird Family Biodesign Support Fund. This gift, along with an engineering scholarship and other contributions, will help increase ASU’s positive impacts on the communities it serves. Photo by Andy DeLisle/ASU
Lu Baird has been immersed in science and engineering her whole life.
Her father, J. Travis Baird, was an electrical engineer who set an example of scientific curiosity. He built all sorts of things and recruited Lu, the first of his two daughters, as his workshop assistant.
The Bairds encouraged Lu’s passion for science and tinkering throughout her childhood. Some of her favorite gifts were a Gilbert Chemistry Set in a blue metal folding case, a microscope and an Estwing rock hammer. By age 9, she set her sights on becoming a geologist or paleontologist.
After some twists and turns in her life, Baird enjoyed a rewarding 28-year technology career in the financial industry. It was her third career after teaching elementary school and trying office management.
She started in a trainee program that taught her to program on an IBM punch card system. Then she worked her way up to being a quality assurance engineer testing online trading software.
Through it all, she never lost her love for everything science.
When Baird discovered the work happening at Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, she was so impressed by what she saw that she knew she needed to be a part of its future.
“I don't think there's any other place in the entire world where you can make as much difference as contributing here,” Baird says.
Baird was already planning to support ASU’s Ceramics Research Center because of her passion for ceramics. She was also in the process of establishing a scholarship to support students in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. Discovering the Biodesign Institute ignited a desire to do more.
So, she decided to update her living trust to include the Baird Family Biodesign Support Fund. This $1.7 million gift represents $100,000 for each of the institute’s 16 centers and its new compact X-ray free electron laser.
Joining a legacy of research that matters
Baird moved from California wine country after retiring to escape its frequent wildfires. She found the perfect home in Arizona's Sun City West.
One of her new neighbors recommended she join the West Valley STEM Club. The social group is open to anyone with a career or interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
At one fateful club meeting in October 2024, Baird was running late. When she finally arrived, there was only one seat left open near the front of the room, her preferred spot. That seat happened to be next to the invited speaker, Joshua LaBaer, executive director of the Biodesign Institute and director of the Biodesign Virginia G. Piper Center for Personalized Diagnostics.
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Baird and LaBaer were immediately inspired by their shared interest in making a difference in the world.
“Lu is wonderful. She is obviously technically trained and I believe a scientist at heart. I am pretty confident she is running some kinds of experiments at home,” LaBaer says.
After attending the institute’s 20th anniversary dinner, Baird was invited to tour some of the labs. One of her most memorable experiences was visiting the world’s first room-sized tool that can see inside things as small as atoms.
She had heard all about the compact X-ray free electron laser at LaBaer’s talk. But getting to “put the little hat and booties on” to see it for herself blew her away. Baird was impressed that ASU created a system that increases access to testing for new materials and medicines.
With so many health challenges still not understood or cured, Baird is interested in the institute’s work related to medicine. She is also excited about its work related to cybersecurity because of her information technology career.
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Visiting the institute got Baird thinking: “I need to expand the impact of what I did in my life, so what better place to do it than a research center? Why not put it to something that’s going to make a difference in the broadest possible impact? And that’s how I see the Biodesign Institute.”
Baird is passionate about scientific research because of how it brings people and ideas together to solve problems. She gets emotional when she thinks about the Biodesign Institute’s work.
“It’s such a great concept, that the institute brings so many different disciplines together to solve problems, to look at things outside of the box,” she says. “When I was an IT person, that's what we always tried to do, get outside of what it should look like to what it could look like.”
The Baird Family Biodesign Support Fund will help the institute respond to emerging opportunities, address urgent needs and advance important work.
“Not everyone understands the importance of scientific discovery and how it impacts the world with a rippling effect, but Lu is on the hunt for just that,” LaBaer says. “So when she saw the highly eclectic types of science we do at Biodesign — all focused on improving the world, with so many disciplines mixed in our many labs — she was instantly excited to be a part of it all. And we love having her.”
Supporting the next generation of engineers and technologists
In addition to supporting research with her gift, Baird created the Baird Family STEM Scholarship.
She is inspired by how students today are preparing for their own engineering and technology careers. Hearing about the opportunities ASU students have made Baird wish she could have attended the university at the start of her career.
“It was amazing to hear what they do here as far as getting involved right away in making things, creating things, designing things, instead of (only) studying something.”
Her own college experience was a motivating factor for starting a scholarship.
She had planned to earn a bachelor’s degree in geology, bringing along her prized Estwing rock hammer. Then, in her sophomore year, she eloped with her high school sweetheart. But she didn't let that keep her from finishing college, like her father had suspected.
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“No matter what, he was not going to be right about that,” Baird says.
She worked demanding full-time jobs while going to school full time. All the hard work paid off when Baird graduated with honors. She ended up having to choose a different path than geology, but she proved her father wrong. Later, she even ended up earning an MBA.
Baird hopes her scholarship prevents some of the hardship she faced in earning her bachelor’s degree.
“I would like for students not to have that burden so they could concentrate on studying,” she says. “And if I can help some young man or woman not struggle as much, that's my purpose.”
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