Professor and....owner of a hockey team? It seems like an odd combo. For Henry Samueli, it's a profitable venture. Samueli, the son of Polish Jewish immigrants, began at the bottom: He stocked the shelves of his parent's booze store to help out his family. After taking an electronics lesson in junior high, he grew interested in the subject. Samueli got his BA, MA, and Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), following which he became a professor there. He and his former pupil, Henry Nicholas, formed the Broadcom Corporation while he was still in this position. Samueli left his teaching when the company took off, although his name remains on the UCLA Department of Electrical Engineering's faculty list.

Samueli and his wife purchased the Anaheim Ducks (formerly the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim) for $75 million from the Walt Disney Company in 2005. The Ducks won the Stanley Cup under his ownership in 2007, but Samueli was suspended in 2008 after confessing to lying to US security inspectors. The matter was dismissed a year later, and Samueli was exonerated and reinstated as the owner. Anaheim Ducks are currently valued at $188 million.

Samueli has also developed two health-related institutions: the University of California, Irvine's Center for Integrative Medicine, and the Samueli Institute of Information Biology in Washington, D.C. Both seek to conduct medical research in well-known and lesser-known disciplines. In addition to directing UCLA's engineering department, he has given funding to institutions such as the Orange County High School of the Arts (OCHSA), the Ocean Institute, and Chapman University.

The 2010 UCLA Medal, the 2011 Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award, and the 2012 Marconi Prize are among his honors. Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and Member of the National Academy of Engineering are two of his credentials. Samueli's estimated net worth is between $1.7 and $2.3 billion.

Net Worth: $1.7 Billion +

David Cheriton, a Vancouver native who attended high school in Alberta, is the only Canadian on the list of the richest professors. After being denied from the school's music department, he studied mathematics at the University of Alberta for a short time. He graduated from the University of British Columbia with a bachelor's degree in mathematics (UBC). At the University of Waterloo, he earned his master's and doctorate degrees. Cheriton worked as an Assistant Professor at UBC for three years after graduating, and then as a Computer Science professor at Stanford.

Cheriton co-founded Granite Systems, a gigabit ethernet production company, a decade after relocating to Stanford, Ontario. Cisco Systems eventually purchased the company in 1996. He met Stanford students Sergey Brin and Larry Page two years later and wrote the first $100 000 checks to fund what would soon become the billion-dollar firm Google. He went on to co-found companies including Arrastra (which manufactures Ethernet switches) and Kealia.

Cheriton's Google stake is worth more than $1 billion, making him the 20th richest Canadian and the world's 882nd individual. Despite this, he is noted for leading a relatively simple life. He has made numerous donations, including $25 million to the University of Waterloo's Computer Science Program and $2 million to UBC's Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI).

Net Worth: $1.7 Billion

Adi Shamir, an Israeli cryptographer, was born in Tel Aviv in 1952. He earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Tel Aviv University and a doctorate in computer science from Weizmann University. He spent three years at MIT doing research after a year at the University of Warwick. Shamir eventually returned to the Weizmann Institute to teach Mathematics and Computer Science. He began teaching at the famous École Normale Supérieure in Paris as a guest professor in 2006.

Shamir has made substantial contributions to the field of cryptology. The Shamir secret sharing method, visual cryptography, and the theoretical TWIRL and TWINKLE factoring machines are only a few of them. In computer science, he created the RSA algorithm.

Several accolades have been given to Shamir for his contributions to computer science and cryptology, including the Israel Mathematical Society's Erdős Prize, the Vatican's PIUS XI Gold Medal, and the UAP Scientific Prize.

Net Worth: $1 Billion +

Robert S. Langer was born in Albany, New York, on August 29th, 1948. Langer obtained his BA in chemical engineering from Cornell University and his Doctorate of Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology after finishing his secondary school at The Milne School (MIT). His postdoctoral work was supporting cancer researcher Judah Folkman at Children's Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School.

Langer is a Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology faculty member and the David H. Koch Institute Professor at MIT. His contributions to medicine and biotechnology have won him a spectacular reputation, and he's a pioneer of innovative technologies including controlled release systems and transdermal delivery systems, which include giving pharmaceuticals to the skin or extracting chemical substances without the use of needles. To top it off, he and his group have produced numerous advancements in tissue engineering, including manufactured blood arteries and muscular tissue. Langer is the author of over 1200 scientific articles and the creator of several science and technology enterprises, including Acusphere, Living Proof, and Seventh Sense. He also has numerous grants and pending patents.

Langer won the US National Medal of Science, the Lemelson-MIT Prize, and the Priestley Medal in 2013. He is the youngest individual in history to be elected to all three American science academies: the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and the Institute of Medicine (IM). He is 43 years old. He also has honorary degrees from the University of Liverpool, Albany Medical College, and the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center. He is regarded as one of the richest professors, with a net worth of around $10 million.

Net Worth: $10 Million

Legend Frank and Isobel Hawking, both Oxford graduates, gave birth to Stephen Hawking on January 8, 1942. Hawking was known as "Einstein" during his early school years, despite the fact that he was not academically successful at the time. However, he continued to advance in science and was encouraged by well-known mathematician Dikran Tahta. Despite his father's worries that a degree in mathematics would limit his professional options, Hawking decided to pursue it. Hawking received a scholarship in 1959 and enrolled at Oxford a year early to study chemistry and physics. He received a first-class honors degree and went on to Trinity Hall in Cambridge to pursue his Ph.D. studies.

Hawkins was diagnosed with motor neuron disease at the age of 21. He is almost completely paralyzed as a result of the disease, and can only communicate through a voice generator. Fortunately, he married while working on his Ph.D., and he graduated in March 1966. Hawking was appointed Lucasion Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge in 1979 when he was 37 years old. He would stay in that role for the following 30 years, retiring in 2009.

In the field of science, Stephen Hawking has been responsible for game-changing breakthroughs. He has created theories on gravitational singularity theorems, predictions that black holes release radiation (affectionately known as Hawking radiation), and is an outspoken advocate of quantum mechanics, all while collaborating with fellow scientist Roger Penrose. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and has received numerous honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian award in the United States. He's also had a lot of success with his science books. With a total of 237 weeks on the British Sunday Times bestsellers list, his book A Brief History of Time set a new record (or almost 5 years to be more precise).

Although he passed away at the age of 76, with his dedication, he is still one of the greatest professors in human history. And with his wealth, he has his name on the list of the richest professors.

Net Worth: $20 Million