Sandor Straus is managing director of Merfin, LLC, an investment management firm. He is also president of the Firedoll Foundation. Sandor is a board member of Netrics. He was previously a partner of Renaissance Technologies Corp. and a manager of the Medallion Fund.

In addition to serving on the Board of MSRI, he serves as Board Vice President of the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center and serves as Board Treasurer of the Marine Mammal Center.

He received his PhD in mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1972 and has been on the faculty at Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and the State University of New York at Stony Brook.