Making a Difference

Inspired by the experience of their son (Matt Huang ’10) as a math major at MIT—and how important mathematics has been in their own lives— MIT parents Chi-Fu Huang and Marina Chen have spearheaded an initiative to endow the summer programs RSI and SPUR, pledging a major gift and soliciting friends and colleagues for additional support. To date, their campaign has raised more than $1 million, out of a $2.5 million goal.

Peiti Tung ’79 (V-13), SM ’80 (VI), and Tim Lu PhD ’92 (XVIII) were two of the first alumni and parents who have since joined this campaign. Chen said she and Huang were inspired to support the department after a meeting with Department Head Michael Sipser. “Mike articulated the need for supporting the summer research programs and made us realize how important it was to continue nurturing these young talents.” “Mathematics,” Huang says, “permeates both my academic and business careers.”

While pursuing his PhD at Stanford, he grew puzzled by a particular problem in financial economics. Realizing he lacked the mathematical knowledge to solve the problem, he spent the next year taking graduate level math courses. He later made significant contributions to financial market research deploying stochastic processes. He was an MIT Sloan faculty member for over ten years, and now serves as non-executive chairman for the firm he co-founded, Platinum Grove Asset Management.

Raised during China’s Cultural Revolution, Tim Lu spent his formative years working in a rural farm and factory. Lu came to MIT after studying at Technical University of Nova Scotia, where math department head Surain Sarwal recognized Lu’s ability and called his former advisor, David Benney. Benney, then head of the Applied Mathematics Group, became Lu’s thesis advisor.

Lu now serves as a Managing Director and head of the Liability Management Group at Credit Suisse. When Chi-Fu Huang and Michael Sipser explained that the recession and cuts to the MIT operating budgets had placed the summer programs in jeopardy, Lu says, “I knew then that I had to do something.” The support is from the Lu Maokang and Sun Rendi Memorial Fund to honor his late parents, who were his very first educators, yet did not see his MIT graduation. Peiti Tung had already established an MIT scholarship honoring her father and had intended to continue supporting MIT through that fund. When Chen and Huang approached her about joining them in the campaign to support the math summer programs, they told her that while “Asians are well represented as students, they have not been as visible as donors supporting higher education.”

By joining them, Chen and Huang argued, Tung would draw greater awareness from their community and attract further support. Tung spent two weeks praying for guidance before deciding that “God loves math too!”

For information on making a gift to the Mathematics Department, please contact Senior Director of Development for Mathematics Erin McGrath Tribble at or 617-452-2807.

This was originally published in the 2010 Integral.