Tashia Morgridge

Tashia Morgridge was a teacher turned philanthropist who, together with her husband John P. Morgridge, the longtime chief executive and chairman of Cisco Systems, became one of the most significant benefactors of scientific research and public education in Wisconsin and beyond. She died on November 4, 2026, at the age of 93, according to the first reports of her death. No cause of death had been made public at the time of writing.

Morgridge began her working life as a schoolteacher, an experience that is widely reported to have shaped the couple's later giving, which consistently prioritized classrooms, teachers and early learning alongside laboratory science. She and John Morgridge, who led Cisco Systems as chief executive from 1988 to 1995 and then served as its chairman for more than a decade, built their family's philanthropic identity around the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the school both of them had attended before John went on to earn his MBA at Stanford.

The couple's best known joint achievement was the founding of the Morgridge Institute for Research, a private, nonprofit biomedical research institute in Madison, Wisconsin that works alongside the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Opened in 2010 with major funding from the Morgridges, the institute was built to let scientists pursue fundamental discoveries in areas such as regenerative biology, medical engineering and virology without the constraints of traditional grant cycles. The couple channeled much of their giving through the Morgridge Family Foundation, which over the years supported not only the research institute but also education programs, children's health initiatives and scholarship funds, reflecting Tashia Morgridge's own background in teaching as much as her husband's career in technology.

Why this mattered to so many people is straightforward: the Morgridges' money helped build an institution that continues to employ scientists and train students long after any single donation, and their public emphasis on teachers and classrooms gave a technology fortune a distinctly educational cast. Tashia Morgridge was rarely as publicly visible as her husband, who gave interviews about Cisco's rise, but she was consistently named alongside him as a co-founder and decision maker in the family's philanthropy, and colleagues at the institute and at the university have credited both Morgridges equally with the vision behind it.

News of her death began circulating on November 4 and 5, 2026, with early reports identifying her simply as a co-founder of the Morgridge Institute for Research who had died at 93. Fuller details, including the circumstances of her death, where she died and plans for a memorial service, had not yet been published. This page will be updated as verified information becomes available.