doubled in 2006. The foundation continues to fund its operations, contributing nearly $22 million in 2018. Simons has been a major benefactor of Berkeley. On July 1, 2012, the Simons Foundation pledged $60 million to Berkeley to establish the Simons Institute for the Theory of Computing, the world's leading institute for collaborative research in theoretical computer science. In 2020, Simons made additional grants to Berkeley totaling over $46 million. He and his wife also have made major grants to Berkeley affiliates, notably to the Simons Laufer Mathematical Sciences Institute and Berkeley Lab. The Simons Foundation established the Flatiron Institute in 2016, to house 5 groups of computational scientists (each with 60 or more PhD level researchers). The institute consists of four cores or departments: CCB (Center for Computational Biology), CCA (Center for Computational Astrophysics), CCQ (Center for Computational Quantum mechanics), CCM (Center for Computational Mathematics), and CCN (Center for Computational Neuroscience). The new institute is located in Manhattan and represents a major investment in basic computational science. Simons and his wife are among MIT's largest contributors. They have funded the renovation of the building housing the mathematics department, which in 2016 was named in their honor, and endowed the Simons Center for the Social Brain. Simons is a life member emeritus of the MIT Corporation. In memory of his son Paul, whom he had with his first wife, Barbara Simons, he established Avalon Park, a nature preserve in Stony Brook. In 1996, 34-year-old Paul was killed by a car driver while riding a bicycle near the Simons home. Another son, Nick Simons, drowned at age 24 while on a trip to Bali in Indonesia in 2003. Nick had worked in Nepal. The Simons have become large donors to Nepalese healthcare through the Nick Simons Institute. In 2006, Simons donated $25 million to Stony Brook University through the Stony Brook Foundation, the largest donation ever to a State University of New York school at the time. On February 27, 2008, then Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced a $60 million donation by the Simons Foundation to found the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook, the largest gift to a public university in New York state history. In 2011, Simons broke that record again with a $150 million donation to Stony Brook, which went to research in medical sciences, the construction of a life sciences building, the creation of a neurosciences