Promys Foundation

“The foundation's officers review and approve the form 990 before submission.”

“Annually, each trustee is expected to report conflict of interests to the board of trustees.”

“The foundation makes its form 1023, form 990 and its organizational documents available for public inspection upon request and via the massachusetts public charity website.”

“1.breakout fellowships term endowment (donor restricted contributions) - in may 2019, the 2019 breakout fellowship to promys, the 5th year of the fellowship, was awarded to yi fan lin of montreal, canada. Terence tao, richard taylor, and jacob lurie, recipients of the inaugural breakthrough prizes in mathematics, very generously created the breakout fellowship to promys. The breakout fellowship is a full scholarship to promys for a mathematically talented student who might not otherwise be able to attend. With the goal of creating a fully funded breakout fellowship to promys endowment, the promys alum community was invited in december 2014 to match the very generous donation of the breakthrough mathematicians. Thanks to the generosity and vision of all the donors, this endowment goal was reached in march 2015. The future of the breakout fellowships to promys is now assured: there will be a breakout fellow in every promys cohort. 2. It is central to the promys mission that students should be able to attend regardless of financial background, so financial aid is available up to the full cost of participation. The talented multi-tiered mathematical community is a distinguishing feature of promys. There is one undergraduate counselor for every 3 or 4 students. Funding supported honoraria for research mentors who supported research projects for returning students at promys 2019. Funding also supported the promys 30th anniversary which was celebrated with alumni and friends of the program from july 26-28, 2019 with a weekend of mathematics lectures, discussions, games and a banquet. In addition, funding supported promys administrative expenses. 3. The tara and jasubhai mehta fellowships to promys are for mathematically talented low-income students in india and are funded by nicholas nash & phalgun raju, avi & sandra nash, the indira foundation and morph.org, the mehta fellowship sponsors. Each mehta fellowship covers all tuition and room and board costs for attending the six weeks of promys at boston university. The fellowships also cover travel and a stipend for books. Promys was delighted to welcome fifteen mehta fellows in 2019: six first-year mehta fellows, four returning mehta fellows, one junior counselor and four mehta counselors. Running since 2015, the mehta fellowships are the pilot program for promys india, an offshoot promys program launching in india in 2021. The 2019 mehta fellowship funding also covers preparations for the launch of the new program. 4. There were 24 teachers at promys for teachers 2019. Supporting their collaborative work in number theory, seminars and research were 12 teacher counselors plus faculty including the pft research director. In 2019, promys for teachers also ran a new pilot program for experienced returning teachers which provided a "maker space" for curriculum design over the summer. During the school year, promys teachers are invited to attend five full-day workshops offered jointly by education development center (edc) in waltham and boston university's department of mathematics. These seminars are designed to help teachers "unpack" the pedagogical approaches used in promys to enrich the mathematical experience in their own classrooms. Another important goal of the workshops is to establish an ongoing network of teachers, mathematics educators, and research mathematicians. Typical agenda items include: 1) teacher volunteers share experiences, activities, and student work from their classrooms, 2) the whole group works together on mathematics inspired by topics in the secondary curriculum, and 3) teachers collaboratively plan lessons, working in the style of japanese lesson study groups. 5. Thanks to the generosity and vision of a family foundation, the yongren fellowships to promys were established in 2017 to enable mathematically talented low-income students in china to participate in promys at no cost to their families. Qianyun zhou was the first-year yongren fellow at promys in 2019.”