2025 Living Legends: STRAVITZ, DR. R. TODD

A former liver surgeon who led VCU Health’s liver transplant program, Stravitz is now a prominent philanthropist who has made record-setting donations to William & Mary and Virginia Commonwealth University.

A graduate of W&M and New York University’s medical school, Stravitz donated $104 million in 2022 to establish the Stravitz-Sanyal Institute for Liver Disease and Metabolic Health at VCU, and in February, he gave $50 million to create a full-tuition scholarship for W&M’s Batten School of Coastal & Marine Sciences and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

Now retired, Stravitz keeps busy running the Brunckhorst Foundation, which his late mother, Barbara Brunckhorst, managed in recent decades. His late grandfather, Frank Brunckhorst, founded Boar’s Head Provision Co., the deli products giant. The family foundation contributes to more than 60 organizations nationwide, typically in the areas of medical and environmental research.

In the 1980s as a medical intern at NYU, Stravitz encountered AIDS patients suffering from liver disease, and he decided to specialize in the discipline. That drew him to VCU, then a trailblazer in liver research.