branding/marketing campaign, and the university's increasing ties with private philanthropy. In the mid-1990s, the school began to distance itself from the SUNY system, as Kenny believed that the SUNY name was hurting the school's reputation. In 1998, the university became one of the top 100 of American research universities in the U.S. News & World Report. That same year, the university and Battelle Memorial Institute were chosen by the Department of Energy as joint operators of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, joining a selective group of universities that operated national laboratories across the nation. Enrollment reached the 20,000 mark in 2001, and the administration's improvement efforts climaxed with the invitation to the highly selective Association of American Universities, an organization of sixty-two universities across North America committed to a strong system of research and education. 2002 saw the opening of the $22 million Kenneth P. LaValle Stadium and the inauguration of the massive Charles B. Wang Center dedicated to Asian and American culture, funded by a $50 million donation from Charles B. Wang. At the time, it was the largest private donation to a SUNY institution. In 2003, chemistry professor Paul Lauterbur received a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his research and discovery of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, which was instrumental in the development of NMR Imaging (MRI) while at Stony Brook. In 2005, the university bought the Flowerfield property adjacent to campus through eminent domain as land for the development of a Research and Development Park. Plans for a law school were in the talks but scrapped shortly after. In 2009, president Shirley Strum Kenny stepped down, and in May, Dr. Samuel Stanley, Jr. was announced as Stony Brook's fifth president. The late 2000s saw the university receive historic philanthropic donations. Hedge funder Jim Simons made multiple multi-million donations, including a $25 million donation to the Stony Brook Foundation in 2006, a $60 million donation for the development of the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics in 2008, and a landmark $150 million donation to the university in 2011. Other major donations were provided by alumni Joe Nathan, Stuart Goldstein, and Glenn Dubin for major renovation of athletic facilities. In 2010 Dr. Stanley announced Project 50 Forward, a comprehensive plan for the development of the university in the next fifty years with a focus on "operational excellence, academic greatness, and building for the future." In 2012, the $40 million