“It was out of the blue, and a wonderful surprise,” says Mark Srednicki, of the 6 November news that the University of California, Santa Barbara, physics department, which he chairs, would receive funding for two postdocs. The money comes from the Simons Foundation, which is paying out $19 million for 68 three-year postdoctoral positions in math, theoretical physics, and theoretical computer science.
The positions, open to candidates of any nationality, are with some 46 institutions in the US and at Cambridge and Oxford universities in the UK. The postdocs will earn $65 000–$70 000 a year.
“Because postdocs are a very important first step in one’s career, and a number of such positions have been eliminated at universities due to financial concerns, we moved to plug a gap,” says Jim Simons, a mathematician-turned-investment-manager who 15 years ago created the foundation, now worth more than $1 billion. “If we continue this...
