James Harris Simons - Renaissance Technologies

James (Jim) Simons, is the grandson of a Jewish entrepreneur who ran a shoe factory business in Massachusetts. He graduated a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1958, and received his PhD in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1961 at the age of 23 years.

During 1964-1968, Simons worked as a research staff at the Communications Research Division of Institute of Defense Analysis (IDA). He also took the title as a professor in mathematics at MIT and Harvard University. In 1968 he was appointed Chairman of the Department of Mathematics at Stony Brook University.

Simons' most influential research onto the wide interest and application of many scientists as well as physicists involved the discovery and application of certain geometric measurements, which was resulted in the Chern-Simons invariants, or Chern-Simons theory. In 1974, his theory was published in Characteristic Forms and Geometric Invariants, co-authored with the differential geometer Shiing-Shen Chern. The theory is still currently used in theoretical physics, particularly string theory.

In 1978, he left his academic career in order to establish and manage an investment fund that traded in commodities and financial instruments on his cutting-edge, well-discrete math-whiz calculation methods which is now still a secrecy in this hedge fund industry.