Both professors spoke on condition of anonymity.

Murray could not be reached today and HIGH spokesman B.D. Colen declined to comment. Sarah Friedell, a spokeswoman for Harvard’s development office, said that she could not comment on the gift because it has not been finalized yet.

Walter Willett, who chairs the SPH nutrition department, wrote in an e-mail that the benefits of the Ellison grant for SPH will depend on how the global health monitoring project is structured.

“If this is used to set up a separate institute that draws the involvement of our faculty away from the SPH, it could have a negative impact on research and teaching at our school,” Willett wrote. “However, if it is implemented in such a way that it is well integrated with the activities of the school, and other parts of the university, it can bring new resources to international activities at the SPH that will benefit students, post docs, and faculty.”

Ellison stirred controversy in 2001 when he told the Wall Street Journal that he was going to donate $150 million to either Stanford or Harvard. No announcement of such a gift to Stanford has ever been made.

Ellison told the San Francisco Chronicle on May 8 that the Ellison Medical Foundation would be undertaking a major project with Harvard “very soon.” SPH Dean Barry R. Bloom sits on the Foundation’s scientific advisory board.

—Staff writer May Habib can be reached at habib@fas.harvard.edu.