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Jim Simons

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Marilyn Simons, left, and Jim Simons, third from left, toast the announcement of a $500 million contribution to Stony Brook University’s endowment with SBU President Maurie McInnis and Simons Foundation President David Spergel. File photo from John Griffin/ Stony Brook University

By Daniel Dunaief

James “Jim” Harris Simons, the founder of Renaissance Technologies and former Mathematics chair at Stony Brook University whose foundation donated over $6 billion to scientific and other causes, died on May 10 at the age of 86.

Simons, who was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, to Marcia and Matthew Simons, touched the lives of many across Long Island and the world. He shared a dry sense of humor with those fortunate enough to interact with him, compassion with those who, like him, had suffered painful losses and a readiness to contribute personally and financially in a host of settings, including creating the beloved Avalon Preserve in Stony Brook.

Simons developed an early proficiency in mathematics that helped him earn prestigious distinctions and awards and after he left academia, helped him develop an investment approach that enabled him to amass personal wealth estimated at over $31 billion. Simons, whose cause of death wasn’t released, was the 55th richest person in the world, according to Forbes.

In 1994, Simons co-founded the Simons Foundation with his wife Marilyn. He provided much more than financial support to numerous efforts around the world, including to local institutions such as Stony Brook University, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Indeed, last year, the Simons Foundation gave a $500 million unrestricted gift to Stony Brook University, which is the largest-ever unrestricted gift to a public institution and over the course of seven years, will more than double the endowment for the school.

“Our university is infinitely better because of [Simons], and his passing leaves an enormous hole in the hearts of all who were fortunate to know him,” Maurie McInnis, president of Stony Brook University wrote in a letter to the campus community.

Simons served on the boards of institutions like BNL and SBU, offering well-received advice to leaders of these institutions and to the scientists conducting the kind of work that could one day help combat diseases and improve the quality of quantity of life for future generations.

“He really applied his talents toward trying to better [Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory] and to other area institutions,” said David Tuveson, director of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Cancer Center.

In addition to funding a range of scientific research, the Simons Foundation also supported research into autism. The Simons’ daughter Audrey was diagnosed with autism when she was 6 years old.

The Simons Foundation committed over $725 million to support autism research for more than 700 investigators in the United States and around the world, according to the Simons Foundation.

Simons was “the largest private funder of autism research in the world,” Matthew Lerner, formerly an SBU research associate professor and now an associate professor and life course outcomes program leader at A.J. Drexel Autism Institute, explained in an email. Lerner added that the “impact of his loss will be enormous.”

‘Smartest and richest guy in the room’

When Simons was part of the board at Brookhaven National Laboratory, he offered insights that benefited the institution and the talented researchers who came from all over the world to contribute.

“He always had hard questions,” said Sam Aronson, the lab director of BNL from 2006 to 2012. “That was really stimulating and scary at the same time, talking to the smartest and richest guy in the room.”

Aronson recalled that Simons never needed a cheat sheet from the staff to know what to ask people giving reports when Brookhaven Science Associates, which is a combination of members from Stony Brook University and Battelle and oversees BNL, met to discuss strategy and science.

During fiscal year 2006, a reduction in funding for the nuclear physics program meant that BNL would likely have to cut staff. Simons stepped in to contribute and help raise $13 million to ensure the continued operation of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, or RHIC.

“That was showing evidence that the board who knew what we were doing scientifically really cared about us getting it done and were not looking for someone to fire,” said Aronson, who became director at BNL just after Simons helped spearhead the financial support.

In addition, Simons, who was committed to educating students in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, took time to speak with students about his life experience and these fields.

Doon Gibbs, who retired as lab director at BNL last year, recalled coming to the facility early on a Saturday morning with one of his sons.

Simons was at the lab early on a Saturday morning, telling these students to follow their interests and to rely on their own judgment and decision-making and interests, rather than what other people advised or told them to do.

“That demonstrates the commitment he had personally” to education and to inspiring students, Gibbs said.

Simons inspired leaders at the top of their fields, offering inspiration and encouragement.

Stony Brook “went from the concept of being a great math and physics center to being a great university and [Simons] was all on board for that,” said Shirley Kenny, who was SBU president from 1994 to 2009. “There’s no question that I could dream bigger for Stony Brook because of [Simons].”

The geometric path

A gifted math student who first attended Brookline High School in Massachusetts and then moved to Newton High School, Simons earned his bachelor’s degree in three years from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1958.

After he graduated, Simons and friends from Colombia decided to ride motor scooters from Boston to Buenos Aires. At the time, he didn’t own a motor scooter and had never ridden one.

After seven weeks, he and his friends got as far as Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. Recalling the harrowing trip, Simons had said he came perilously close to death and was sure his mother wouldn’t have allowed him to take such a trip had she known of the risks.

After his motor scooter adventure, Simons chose to attend the University of California at Berkeley because he wanted to work with Shiing-Shen Chern. When he arrived at Berkeley, Simons, who hadn’t met Chern at that point, was disappointed to learn that the Berkeley professor was on sabbatical for the year.

While Chern didn’t serve as thesis adviser for Simons, the two mathematicians did work together, producing the Chern-Simons theory, which has applications in math and physics.

After earning his doctorate, Simons, who regularly smoked cigarettes and preferred to wear loafers without socks, split his time between lecturing at MIT and Harvard and working at the Institute for Defense Analysis in Princeton, where he served as a code breaker for the National Security Agency.

Publicly expressing opposition to the war in Vietnam cost him his job at the IDA.

In 1968, Simons, who was married to Barbara Bluestein, made the fateful decision to join the then 11-year-old Stony Brook University, enticed by President John Toll to become the chairman of the Math Department.

Irwin Kra, who joined the Math Department at Stony Brook the same year as Simons, suggested the two mathematicians became “good friends immediately.”

Building on a passion that Simons would share with friends and colleagues throughout his life, Simons and Kra shared time on a small boat that Kra described as a “putt-putt.” The motor on the boat regularly broke and Kra’s job was to hand Simons tools while he went under the engine trying to repair it, which he successfully did many times.

Kra and Simons, who are both Jewish, got into trouble with Irwin Kra’s wife Eleanor when they brought lobsters to a lake the night before Yom Kippur, which is the holiest day of the year in the Jewish religion and does not typically involve consuming shellfish prior to the Day of Atonement.

As a mathematician, Simons won the American Mathematical Society Veblen Prize in Geometry in 1976, which Kra described as a “very distinguished award in differential geometry — he attacked extremely difficult problems.”

In 1974, Simons and his wife Barbara, who had three children, Elizabeth “Liz,” Nathaniel and Paul, divorced.

Simons married Marilyn Hawrys in 1977. Jim and Marilyn Simons had two children, Nicholas and Audrey.

Birth of Renaissance

In 1978, Simons left the Math Department at Stony Brook to start a company that would later become Renaissance Technologies.

Recruiting mathematicians rather than typical stock pickers or money managers, Simons, who was well ahead of his time in his approach to the market, wanted to develop computer programs that would analyze the markets, deciding when to buy and sell commodities, at first, and then stocks.

The so-called quant funds used the early equivalent of artificial intelligence to find trends in the way the investments they bought and sold — sometimes within a single day — moved, profiting from gains that didn’t rely on typical fundamental Wall Street research.

Over time, Renaissance Technologies’ Medallion Fund established a spectacular track record, with annualized returns of 66% before fees and 39% afterward from 1988 to 2018, according to Gregory Zuckerman, author of “The Man Who Solved the Market,” a biography of Simons.

Simons retired from Renaissance in late 2009, with an estimated net worth of over $11 billion.

Empathetic friend

Simons, who lost his son Paul at the age of 34 from a bike accident in 1996 and his son Nicholas in 2003 when he drowned off Indonesia, gave from his wallet, his intellect and his heart.

In the late 1990s, when Shirley and Robert Kenny were managing through the difficulties of leukemia treatments for their son Joel, Simon sent them on a trip to the Caribbean aboard his yacht.

The boat took them to St. John’s, St. Croix and other islands, providing them with a “wonderful vacation,” Shirley Kenny said. “It was just heavenly. It was a very, very happy memory. We had this joyous time before we had this terrible time and that’s thanks to [Simons.]”

Simons was also known to connect with the families of friends who were experiencing medical challenges or coping with grief.

After his son Paul died, Simons was searching for a way to memorialize him. He reached out to The Ward Melville Heritage Organization to purchase land in Stony Brook. Gloria Rocchio, president of the WMHO, took Simons on a tour of the property that would become the first parcel of land for Avalon Preserve. Simon stood on top of the hill and said, “This is it,” Rocchio recalled, leading to the first land purchase of the Avalon Preserve.

Since then, Simons has added to the preserve, which now includes about 216 acres of property.

Up until this year, Simons remained involved in the preserve, as he wanted to build a tunnel so people wouldn’t have to walk on the road to go from one piece of property to another.

That tunnel, which took years of planning, will be completed in August.

In describing the growth of the preserve, Rocchio recalled how Avalon had added 15 acres, which included a run-down house the donor stipulated couldn’t change.

One day, the trustees arrived and walked through a plastic curtain in the house and discovered the rest of the house was missing.

Simons explained that there were too many termites and the house had to come down.

“That was [Simons],” Rocchio said. “He found out the house was structurally not able to be saved.”

Suffolk County Legislator Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) recalled how important it was to protect that land.

“I have seen most of the nature preserves around the state,” Englebright said. Avalon is not only the “finest in the entire state” but one of the “best I have ever seen anywhere.”

While Avalon is a memorial to Simons’ son Paul, it’s also “a memorial” to Simons, Englebright added.By remaining undeveloped and continuing to protect the old growth forest, the Avalon Preserve prevents the water of Stony Brook Harbor from the kind of pollution that runoff from developed property might otherwise carry.

Simons “turned a terrible tragedy into a living legacy,” Englebright said.

Simons also honored his son Nicholas, creating the Nick Simons Institute in 2006. The institute provides training, support to district hospitals and advocacy for rural health workers in Nepal.

Jim and Marilyn Simons visited Nepal regularly, traveling to remote parts of the country and visiting eight hospitals that would become a part of the Nick Simons Institute.

A humble legacy

Despite the many ways Jim and Marilyn Simons, who earned her bachelor’s degree and her doctorate in economics at Stony Brook University, contributed to science and to the area, they remained humble and accessible.

Aronson suggested to Simons that he wanted to honor him personally for his timely and important contributions to the RHIC at BNL.

When Simons declined, Aronson asked if he could name one of the roads on-site after Renaissance, which Simons approved.

On one of the Stony Brook buildings that bears their name, the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, Simons focused on the student and faculty experience. He wanted to make sure people in the building had a place to eat and didn’t have to trek to the dining hall.

“He wanted a good restaurant there,” recalled Kenny.

Apart from ensuring the building served food, Simons found a problem he wanted to fix. At the opening of the center, he noticed that the elevators were too slow, so he hired the person who built the center to create a separate, faster elevator which was attached to the building after it was completed.

Still contributing

Despite stepping away from the world of academia to become one of the most successful fund managers in history, exceeding the returns of titans like Warren Buffett, Simons still found time to contribute to the world of math.

Bruce Stillman, CEO of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, visited Simons’ office about six years ago. Stillman noticed a copy of a geometry journal on the coffee table and expressed his surprise that Simons was still reading math literature.

“What do you mean reading?” Simons replied, according to Stillman. He told the CSHL leader to open to a particular page, where he had co-authored an article.

“He was still publishing mathematics after being an extremely successful hedge fund manager,” said Stillman, who added that Simons was the largest contributor to CSHL. “He kept a lot of balls juggling in the air.”

Several people shared their appreciation for the opportunity to share relaxing and meaningful time aboard the various boats Simons owned over the years, including the 222-foot yacht called Archimedes.

Aronson took a trip around the harbor aboard the Archimedes soon after Simons had purchased it, describing the ride as akin to a “floating cocktail party.”

While on board, Aronson met famed Kenyan anthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakey. Aronson wound up going on a number of trips to Kenya to work on ways to apply green energy.

As for Kra, he recalled a time when he was supposed to take a trip aboard Simons’ boat. One of the engines broke and Kra suggested he postpone the journey.

Simons refused to cancel and suggested the boat would come in slowly to Miami and would travel slowly to the Caribbean, navigating in calmer, shallower waters, which it did.

Numerous people shared their admiration for a man who contributed and continues to contribute to the lives of educators and students.

Famed actor Alan Alda benefited from his interactions with Simons. He was “a huge force in so many people’s lives, including mine,” Alda wrote in an email. He was “as generous as he was smart. And he was scarily smart.”

With the help of the Simons, Alda helped found the eponymous journalism school at Stony Brook.

“I’ll always be grateful for his and his wife Marilyn’s contributions to the Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook,” and of course, he will have touched countless lives through his landmark gifts to Stony Brook University, Alda added. “He certainly put his love of knowledge to good use.”

Simons is survived by his wife, three children, five grandchildren, and a great grandchild.

Stony Brook University plans to celebrate Simons’s impact in the coming months.

 

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Pictured above, from left to right: Simons Foundation President David Spergel, Jim and Marilyn Simon, Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis and Governor Kathy Hochul. Photo by John Griffin/Stony Brook University

By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief,
Publisher

“What can I do? I’m only one person.”

How many times have we heard that lament? People excuse themselves from doing what they could, since everyone has some skills, to rectify a situation or help a cause by falling back on that one-liner. Elsewhere in these papers, we tell you about one man (and woman) who made an enormous difference in the world. Of course, it helps if you are a genius. 

Jim Simons was a genius. I knew him a little. He lived in Old Field and was a self-deprecating genius, except for the time he referred to himself during a talk he was giving to a small group as “Midas.” And he was right; he turned his understanding of mathematics into investments that made unprecedented amounts of money in much the same way King Midas, in Greek mythology, turned everything he touched into pure gold.

I remember, years ago, when I was traveling in Australia and I walked by a newsstand. Some magazines were propped up with their front pages displayed. I had to stop and stare for a moment because there was Jim’s face above the headline, “Highest income earner in the world” that year. It seems he had grossed four billion dollars, if I recall correctly. That was after he founded Renaissance Technologies in, of all places, beautiful downtown East Setauket.

If you want to make the world a better place, it helps to be a genius and to have fabulous sums of money. But that’s just the beginning of the story. 

As Jim once said, “It’s really hard giving away money…well.” He spent the last third of his adult life figuring out how and to whom he and his wife, Marilyn, should be donating funds.

The philanthropy I am most familiar with is Math for America. Being a mathematician, it’s not a surprise Jim was most concerned early on about how math was taught in the schools. Data revealed that the answer was “not very well,” or at least, not as well as it could be taught.

How to proceed?

Jim got his arms around the problem by starting with math teachers. He founded a nonprofit organization to support NYC public school teachers that eventually turned into a four-year fellowship program to increase math and science teachers’ skills.

“MfA’s role is valuing excellence in teaching and doing everything we can to keep great teachers in the classroom,” Jim explained. Part of the problem was the low pay. Math teachers often got hired away by business and industry, leaving a void in the classrooms.

He outlined the five core beliefs of his organization.

First was that teaching is a true profession, giving teachers enormous respect and financing.

Second was that great teachers are always learning. They strive to improve their depth of content knowledge, their expertise in teaching, and their ability to teach to the strengths of every student in their classroom.

Third is the necessity for deep collaboration within  a community of fellow experts to achieve ongoing growth.

Fourth is that regular evaluation of teachers is required to advance the profession.

And finally, fifth is by honoring greatness in the profession. That is achieved by celebrating, promoting and advocating for the best teachers, which raises prestige and attracts the best possible candidates to a career in the classroom.

Here are some impressive numbers that have resulted from that single organization, Math for America, founded 2004.

There are 1078 total teachers that have participated across NYC. Some 125 professional development courses have been offered by MfA in 2022-2023 that are focused on topics of equity and inclusion in the classrooms.

82 percent of MfA teachers have led professional development for their school colleagues.

400+ high quality STEM-focused courses have resulted each semester of which 75 percent have been led by MfA teachers.

60 percent of MfA teachers in NYC said they might have left teaching during 2022-2023 if not for their fellowships.

MfA has been recognized by the legislature of NYS and the U.S.Congress.

Thank you, Jim Simons.

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Pictured above, from left to right: Simons Foundation President David Spergel, Jim and Marilyn Simon, Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis and Governor Kathy Hochul. Photo by John Griffin/Stony Brook University

Stony Brook University’s former Math Department chair is making history.

Jim Simons, with his wife Marilyn and through the Simons Foundation, is giving the largest ever unrestricted gift of $500 million to the university’s endowment.

The donation, which the Simons Foundation will provide in installments over the next seven years, will more than double the endowment for the SUNY flagship school.

As a part of a program Governor Kathy Hochul (D) created last year, New York State will provide a one-to-two endowment match while the school, with support from the Simons Foundation, reaches out to other donors for additional support.

SBU expects the gift to total about $1 billion.

“Today is indeed a historic day for Stony Brook University,” President Maurie McInnis said during a press conference at the Simons Foundation headquarters in Manhattan on June 1. “I cannot overestimate the tremendous impact” the gift will have.

The university anticipates using the gift, named the Simons Infinity Investment, for student scholarships for a diverse student body, endowed professorships, research initiatives, development of new academic fields and clinical care.

McInnis, who is the sixth president of SBU, suggested this kind of support helped create and shape some of the nation’s most prestigious universities, including Harvard and Yale.

Looking at how they started, “you’ll find that they were bolstered by generous supporters who were ambitious and wise enough to see the potential of the institutions and invest in the future,” McInnis said at the press conference. “Because of those supporters, look where they are now. That is the trajectory we are on,” thanks to the support from Jim and Marilyn Simons and the foundation president, David Spergel.

McInnis believes the funds will help make the university a place where every student meets their potential, thanks to the support and the “deep sense of belonging in every corner of campus.”

The funds would also help ensure that researchers have access to the “best labs and equipment” so they can “chase the next discovery” and where learners will come to the university because they “know they have the resources they need to make a difference.”

History of giving

The Simons family has a long history of giving back to the university, which was so important in their lives.

Starting with a much more humble gift of $750 in 1983, the Simons family, with this gift and other recent commitments, have pledged $1.2 billion to a university that Gov. Hochul declared a flagship of the state university system in 2022.

“I’m so happy to be here today, to be able to give back to Stony Brook, which has given so much to me,” Marilyn Simons said at the press conference.

When she started as a student at Stony Brook, Marilyn said her father was a subcontractor who, along with her brother and cousin, did some of the brickwork at university buildings.

In addition to earning her bachelor’s at Stony Brook, Marilyn Simons also earned her Ph.D.

“I’m grateful to Stony Brook for all it’s given me,” she said. “I hope many others will invest along with us.”

Jim Simons became chairman of the Math Department when he was 30. He hired 10 faculty in his first year and the same number in his second.

When Hochul stood up to speak, Simons interrupted her.

“I’ve known” all six presidents of Stony Brook, the former Math Department chair said. McInnis “is the best.”

Hochul appreciated the direction and vision of SBU’s leadership, recognizing the sizeable financial commitment the state would now have to meet.

When she came up with the endowment idea, “I didn’t realize it was going to be so expensive for me,” Hochul laughed. If that inspired the Simons Foundation to come forward, “it was worth it.”

A public institution like Stony Brook “has no limits right now,” Hochul added. “I guarantee across the world, they’ve all heard of Stony Brook right now.”

A winning streak

The $500 million gift from the Simons Foundation continues a winning streak, making 2023 a memorable and landmark year for the university.

A few weeks ago, Stony Brook, with a $100 million commitment from the Simons Foundation, won the state’s contest to turn Governors Island into a center for climate science called the New York Climate Exchange. [See story, “SBU will develop $700M climate center on Governors Island,” April 26, TBR News Media website.]

The center, which will cost $700 million to construct and is expected to open in 2028, will house research laboratories, host community discussions and train 6,000 people per year to work in green energy jobs.

SBU has “shown that it has the knowledge, the authority and the boldness to bring together the most eminent institutions to address the world’s leading challenges,” McInnis said.

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Stony Brook University: Entrance sign

The Simons Foundation’s contribution is the largest unrestricted endowment gift to a higher education institution in American history

The Simons Foundation, a philanthropy working to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences, today announced a historic $500 million endowment gift to Stony Brook University during a news conference at the foundation’s Manhattan headquarters. This monumental gift — the combined largesse of the Simons Foundation and Simons Foundation International — is the largest unrestricted donation to an institution of higher education in U.S. history.

The extraordinary gift is also expected to grow by up to $1 billion in contributions for Stony Brook University’s endowment by capitalizing on New York State’s 1:2 endowment matching program and other philanthropy inspired by this gift. This transformative donation will cement Stony Brook’s place as New York’s flagship research institution and provide the means to invest in areas most urgent and necessary to help sustain the university’s commitment to educational excellence, research innovation and community support.

Investments stemming from this gift will have a direct and positive impact on perpetual funding for student scholarships, endowed professorships, innovative research, and excellent clinical care.

“The Simons Foundation mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences,” Foundation President David Spergel said. “For more than a decade, we have been proud to give to an institution that is at the forefront of educational excellence in the sciences. It is our sincere hope that this large unrestricted gift will build upon our previous support to Stony Brook, giving students and faculty the ability to dream big and engage in transformative research.”

“A world-class, public education has the ability to transform the lives of New Yorkers, which is why in this year’s budget we created the first-ever matching fund for endowment contributions for SUNY’s university centers,” Governor Kathy Hochul said. “Time and again, Stony Brook University forges a bold path forward, from innovation happening at Brookhaven Lab to the economic development throughout Long Island. With this remarkable contribution from the Simons Foundation, Stony Brook will continue to excel as an internationally recognized research institution and give students the tools they need to succeed.”

“We are eternally grateful to Jim and Marilyn Simons and Simons Foundation President David Spergel for their unparalleled support of Stony Brook University. In 1960, we were given a mandate by the State Board of Regents to become a university that would ‘stand with the finest in the country,’” University President Maurie McInnis said. “Thanks in large part to the generosity of the Simons Foundation, we have done just that, and we have no intention of slowing down. We take seriously our commitment to our students, our faculty and our broader community to advance knowledge and contribute to the most significant challenges facing our society. We are so proud of all that we have accomplished as an institution and our best days are ahead of us.”

“I joined Stony Brook University in 1968 as Chair of their Department of Mathematics,” Simons Foundation Co-Founder Jim Simons said. “I knew then it was a top intellectual center with a serious commitment to research and innovation. But Stony Brook also gave me a chance to lead — and so it has been deeply rewarding to watch the university grow and flourish even more. Marilyn and I are proud to support this outstanding public university that has given us so much.”

“As a Stony Brook graduate, I know firsthand the role that a quality education plays in the trajectory of one’s life,” said Marilyn Simons ’74, PhD ’84, Simons Foundation Co-Founder. “I am proud of the education I received there. Jim and I want to ensure that Stony Brook continues to serve its students with the highest level of educational excellence and with world-class resources. The foundation’s gift will also help give those from underserved communities the opportunity to reach their full potential. We look forward to seeing this institution continue to thrive.”

Since Jim and Marilyn made their first gift of $750 in 1983, they and the Simons Foundation have committed more than $1.2 billion to Stony Brook, while also inspiring over 2,100 other donors to give to the university. Their transformational support has led to growth impacting every corner of the Stony Brook campus and beyond, from the Renaissance School of Medicine and the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics to Stony Brook’s Simons STEM Scholars program, nine endowed chairs and professorships in economics, and more.

In addition to this historic gift and previous gifts to Stony Brook University, last month, following Stony Brook’s successful bid to serve as the anchor institution of the The New York Climate Exchange, the Simons Foundation committed $100 million to the project’s expected $700 million budget. These funds will help establish this climate research, education and green-economy training hub, set to transform how the world responds to the climate crisis and pioneer investigation into environmental, community and health outcomes and impacts.

The Simons’ own personal involvement in Stony Brook community life over the past 55 years has been life-changing for generations of students’ and scholars’ past, present and future. They have provided countless hours of counsel and leadership to advance important initiatives. For example, Marilyn Simons’ work with the  Stony Brook Women’s Leadership Council mentoring program has been a launchpad for the careers of many undergraduates from all over campus.

“Jim and Marilyn have a long history of generously supporting the sciences, education, and the health and well-being of New Yorkers,” said Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies, and 108th Mayor of New York City. “This new gift is an extraordinary example of that, and it will help Stony Brook University make critical investments that will empower more students to reach their full potential.” 

“The generosity of Jim and Marilyn Simons and the Simons Foundation has already changed the lives of millions of New Yorkers, and this historic contribution to Stony Brook University will impact our students and our state for generations to come,” said SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr. “Today’s announcement will benefit SUNY students through scholarship, academic programs, and research opportunities, and it will enhance Stony Brook’s prominence as a world-class leader of higher education. The Simons donation illustrates the power of Governor Hochul’s Endowment Fund Match program to multiply the support of generous donors to expand research and scholarship across SUNY.”

“It is my true honor to know Jim and Marilyn and to have had the privilege to work alongside them for more than 30 years,” said Stony Brook Foundation Board of Trustees Chair Richard Gelfond ‘76. “Both as an alumnus of Stony Brook and as Board chair, I am grateful for their generous philanthropic support, their leadership, and their friendship. They have made an indelible impact on the future of the University.”

# # #

About Stony Brook University

Stony Brook is New York’s top ranked public university and a part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system, an internationally recognized research institution and center of academic excellence dedicated to addressing pressing global challenges. SBU serves as the anchor institution for the New York Climate Exchange on Governors Island, the nation’s first climate research, education and green-sector-job-training hub set to transform how our global response to the climate crisis. As one of only eight American universities with a role in running a national laboratory, Stony Brook is also the joint managing partner of the Brookhaven National Laboratory for the U.S. Department of Energy.  The university’s distinguished faculty have earned esteemed awards such as the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, Indianapolis Prize for animal conservation, Abel Prize and the inaugural Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics.

 

About Simons Foundation

Co-founded in 1994 in New York City by Jim and Marilyn Simons, the Simons Foundation’s mission is to support basic scientific research in pursuit of understanding the phenomena of our world. The Simons Foundation provides grants to individual researchers and to scientific collaborations and institutions, work in mathematics and physical sciences, life sciences, neuroscience, and autism science. The Simons Foundation also conducts computational research in basic sciences in-house at its Flatiron Institute.

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Executives of the East Setauket-based hedge fund, Renaissance Technologies, have agreed to settle up to $7 billion in a tax dispute with the Internal Revenue Service, according to reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

The long-running dispute reportedly arose following a Senate investigation indicating the firm used complex financial instruments as tax avoidance measures between 2005 and 2015. The agreement may be one of the largest in U.S. history.

Included in the settlement are founder and philanthropist James Simons, of East Setauket, and former co-managing director Robert Mercer, of Head of the Harbor. Both men have been political donors.

According to the Times, Simons will make a payment of $670 million in addition to his obligation to pay further sums along with Mercer and others.

Simons founded the hedge fund in 1982. He was a codebreaker in the 1960s and is a former chairman of Stony Brook University’s Department of Mathematics.

Simons stepped down from active involvement in Renaissance in 2010, while Mercer resigned as co-CEO at the end
of 2017.

TBR News Media was unable to obtain comment from Renaissance Technologies by press time.

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Photo by © Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

After two years of extensive renovation and with generous support from New York State, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s historic Demerec Laboratory was reborn as a state-of-the-art research facility. Governor Andrew Cuomo cut the ribbon for the building’s reopening on Oct. 30, celebrating how the state will benefit from this new chapter in CSHL research.

“It’s good for Long Island, it’s good for the economy, but also it is doing work that I believe will improve the quality of life for thousands and thousands of people. I believe this work will actually save lives and there is nothing more important than that,” Governor Cuomo said during his visit. “That is the work that the people in this facility are dedicated to and God bless them for that. The state is honored to be playing a small role today.”

The Demerec Laboratory, home to four Nobel laureates, has been both a bastion and compass point for genetics research in New York and the world. Its new research will focus on taking a more holistic approach to treating cancer and the disease’s impact on the entire body.

According to the CSHL’s website, the new center “will enable newly developed compounds to be refined by world-leading chemists to develop next-generation therapies. This research will form a basis for collaboration with private foundations and pharmaceutical companies, while advancing the development of new drugs. 

In addition, the center will support ongoing research activities aimed to develop therapeutics for breast cancer, leukemia, autism, obesity, diabetes and lung cancer. The primary goal of such research activities will include the development of advanced drug compounds targeting underlying biological pathways.” 

To prepare the Demerec building for 21st-century science, it had to be gutted, with extensive renovations of the basement and interior, while leaving the historic 1950s brutalist exterior largely unchanged.

“We really challenged ourselves to preserve the history of the building as much as possible,” said Centerbrook design firm architect Todd E. Andrews, who planned the renovation.

The result is a modern facility uniquely designed for a scientific approach that considers disease not as a stand-alone subject of study but as a complex system that focuses on the patient.

“Too often [scientists] are not looking at the patient and the system of the patient … even though there are obvious signs that we should be looking,” said Dr. Tobias Janowitz, one of the next generation of Demerec Lab scientists and research-clinicians dedicated to rethinking cancer medicine.

Other Demerec researchers will include Nicholas Tonks, who investigates relationships between diabetes, obesity and cancer, and Linda Van Aelst, a neuroscientist who is interested in how sleep and signals from the brain may be impacted by cancer. Semir Beyaz, who studies how a patient’s nutrition can affect cancer treatment, will also join the team.

While the Demerec Laboratory’s faculty hasn’t been finalized, the researchers will be working alongside the rest of the CSHL community — including 600 scientists, students and technicians — to create a distinctly collaborative and cross-disciplinary culture.

Governor Cuomo called the Demerec building and the larger CSHL campus “hallowed ground for scientific research,” after dedicating $25 million in 2017 toward the $75 million renovation and said he is confident the space and its scientists will deliver a new wave of scientific progress.

“We invested over $620 million statewide in life sciences with $250 million in Long Island alone in biotech. Why? Because we believe that is an economic cluster that is going to grow and that is going to create jobs and it already is,” the governor said. “I believe Long Island is going to be the next Research Triangle.“

Renovating a single research facility may seem like a small step toward the state’s goal, but this particular building has made Long Island a scientific hot spot once again.

“While the Demerec building is comparatively smaller than larger projects that the governor has initiated … it is arguably one of the most productive buildings in all of science,” said CSHL President and CEO Bruce Stillman. “This renovation allows us to really think about where the Lab will take things next. It will have, I hope, a global impact on the research community, especially in the biomedical sciences.

Pictured from left: Laurel Hollow Mayor Daniel DeVita, President of Long Island Association Kevin Law, Northwell Health CEO Michael Dowling, President of Empire State Development Eric Gertler, Commissioner of Health for NYS Dr. Howard Zucker, CSHL President and CEO Bruce Stillman, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, CSHL Honorary Trustee Jim Simons, CSHL Chair of the Board of Trustees Marilyn Simons, Nassau County Supervisor Laura Curran, NYS State Assemblyman Chuck Lavine, NYS Assemblyman Steve Stern, NYS Senator Jim Gaughran and CSHL COO John Tuke.   Photo by © Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo

 

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