Surae's Mostly-Quarterly Funding Request

WHO My name is Brandon Goodell. I am Monero Research Lab’s first postdoctoral researcher into cryptocurrency. I have a Ph.D. in Mathematical Sciences from Clemson University, a M.Sc. in Mathematics from North Dakota State University, and a B.S. in Mathematics from Colorado State University. I taught as a graduate student for 9 years at the university level, and I have participated in the Monero community under the pseudonym Surae Noether on-and-off 2014-2016, and I have worked at MRL full-time since June 2017.

WHAT I am requesting a continuation of funding for research, educational outreach, and community service. My request covers the dates of Aug 1 to Oct 31, with the stipulation that the dates of Aug 6 to Aug 20 will be used for paid time off. These three months are mainly for research; I have no Konferenco right now to organize and I have had a lot of outreach lately. As in my previous request, I am requesting this money be paid up front at the time that funding is complete (see the note below).

WHY Please see my Quarterly Update here for a very brief summary of the past 3 months of contributions to the Monero community I have made. I believe that Q2 of 2019 speaks for itself. My biggest recent success is the Monero Konferenco. We had some surprise guests; dignitaries from Malta, Slovakia, Australia, Thailand, and Taiwan all attended our event with last-minute notice. We even had a plan to have these folks to hop onto our panel, but things didn’t quite work out. I am keenly interested in finishing my matching simulations, assisting Sarang with an analysis of the big three sublinear RingCT replacement schemes we are considering, continuing my work in general at Monero Research Lab, and assisting the 2020 Konferenco efforts.

See Sarang's request for the following comment, which also applies to my request: Please read this paragraph carefully for an important change. An ongoing issue with multi-month research funding is that of price volatility. Because the XMR/USD conversion rate is subject to large changes over several months, neither donors nor I know what the actual value of donations will be when they are eventually paid out. To mitigate this and provide the most stability, this request will be paid out in full when it is funded.

To re-iterate: My request covers the dates of Aug 1 to Oct 31, with the stipulation that the dates of Aug 6 to Aug 20 will be used for paid time off.

HOW MUCH TOTAL 357 XMR. My monthly rate is 10,400 USD per month. I am asking at 87.39 USD/XMR as my baseline exchange rate based on the 14-day EMA on Kraken as of the moment I’m writing this post.