Charles Martin Hall was an American inventor, businessman, and chemist. He is best known for his invention in 1886 of an inexpensive method for producing aluminum, which became the first metal to attain widespread use since the prehistoric discovery of iron. He was one of the founders of Alcoa, along with Alfred E. Hunt; Hunt's partner at the Pittsburgh Testing Laboratory, George Hubbard Clapp; Hunt's chief chemist, W. S. Sample; Howard Lash, head of the Carbon Steel Company; Millard Hunsiker, sales manager for the Carbon Steel Company; and Robert Scott, a mill superintendent for the Carnegie Steel Company. Together they raised $20,000 to launch the Pittsburgh Reduction Company, which was later renamed Aluminum Company of America and then shortened to Alcoa.

The Harvard–Yenching Institute is an independent foundation dedicated to advancing higher education in Asia in the humanities and social sciences, with special attention to the study of Asian culture. It traditionally had close ties to Harvard University and the now-defunct Yenching University, and its offices are located on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but it is not part of Harvard.