Timothy R. Sumner

Born in 1991, I spent all my youth in the sunny city of Tampa, Florida. With my father, Stephen, an electrical engineer, and my mother, Tamara, a child therapist, my sister Rachel and I enjoyed a comfortable middle-class upbringing. From a young age, I was immersed in music, playing various instruments that filled my free time. My mom encouraged my musical pursuits, thinking it would boost my grades, while my dad hoped it would help me impress girls. I wish I had known at this time that correlation doesn’t imply causation, for I didn’t quite excel in either area!

At 13, I joined the Boy Scouts, which quickly became a cornerstone of my childhood. Growing up as the only male in my household, with my father living separately and visiting occasionally, I found camaraderie and connection with other boys and men through the Boy Scouts. I cherish those memories of camping, canoeing, hiking, cooking, sharpening knives, and, of course, burning stuff. It was an adventure-filled time that taught me to handle all sorts of physical challenges. In 2009, I proudly became an Eagle Scout at 17, marking the first time I truly felt honored for my efforts.

After graduating high school in 2010, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. So, naturally, I joined the US Navy and became a Hospital Corpsman. Why not, right? I ended up serving one term, a grand total of five years, and it turned out to be one of the most defining periods of my life. I spent the first year training in Chicago and North Carolina, the next two years at a hospital in Camp Lejuene, and the last two years with a Marine infantry Battalion at Camp Pendleton. During this time, I got to travel to many different countries and meet a variety of people, some of whom I hope to stay friends with forever.

While still enlisted, in November 2013, I took my first trip to a casino with my dad during a trip to Cambodia. That's where I was introduced to probability. After only two bets and walking away $100 richer, I was hooked. Casino games and probabilistic events started occupying my thoughts. What began as researching ways to make profitable bets quickly turned into a fascination with the theory of probability itself. During a New Year's trip to Vegas at the end of 2014, I remember sitting at a craps table with my lifelong friend Jeffrey Wingo, telling him how fascinated I was by probability. He was studying physics at the time, and I explained that I felt like probability was an invisible force guiding those dice. Jeff encouraged me to stop gambling and study Mathematics instead.

After leaving the Navy, I returned home and started classes at Hillsborough Community College. It was here, not in high school, that I discovered my love for learning. During this time, I met my future wife, Ayana, and her four-year-old son, Luca, who I would later adopt. After two years and taking nearly every class the GI Bill would pay for, I transferred to the University of South Florida.

Like many math and science enthusiasts, I initially planned to pursue an engineering degree, following in my father’s footsteps. However, my passion for probability was too strong to ignore. By my third year, I switched to studying statistics and felt more at home than ever before.

During my undergrad years, before I was qualified for serious data work, I held some unusual jobs. I started as a patient transporter, and later, I worked night shifts transporting deceased individuals for funeral homes. I also spent some time as a contract scuba diver, cleaning the bottoms of boats. Finally, in 2019, I landed my first data job as a data analyst for Wyndham Destinations and have been working professionally with statistics ever since.

After earning my Bachelor's degree in the subject, Ayana and I got married, and our family has continued to grow since.

In 2021, my wife and I welcomed our first daughter, Samara, and in 2025 our second child, our son Vince. Our eldest son, Luca, who was 12 at the time, became deeply involved in track and field starting in late 2019. Samara gravitated toward dancing and singing, and my wife also took up dancing, eventually competing in her first official West Coast Swing competition.

In 2022, I completed my Master’s degree in Statistics and Data Science and began pursuing a PhD in Mathematics at the University of Central Florida, with a focus on probability and stochastic calculus. Over those years, I became well-versed in statistical theory and worked to deepen my mathematical foundation. Since starting my first data role in 2019, I immersed myself in data-driven work and collaborated with multiple research groups across both academic and professional environments. Alongside these commitments, I balanced publishing efforts while remaining fully present as a husband and father.

It was also during this chapter that I discovered my passion for working on DeFi projects. It was an industry I never planned on entering, but after learning the landscape and engaging deeply with the problems it presents, I’m grateful that it found me.

This chapter marks a clear shift. Until now, much of my life had been spent learning—studying mathematics and statistics, exploring new disciplines, building technical depth, and understanding how complex systems behave. Alongside that growth, I built a family, which remains the most meaningful foundation of all. What I had not done was commit sustained effort to building something enduring in a professional sense.

I am now focused on changing that. Rather than continuing to accumulate knowledge for its own sake, I am applying what I’ve learned over the years as an analytical professional in the crypto and financial markets to build products and institutions with lasting value. This phase is about execution, ownership, and responsibility—turning theory into systems that operate in the real world.

That effort is now consolidated under Frith Labs. Frith Labs serves as the vehicle through which research, product development, and market engagement come together—combining quantitative rigor with practical implementation. It represents a deliberate move away from exploration and toward construction: building tools, frameworks, and infrastructure designed to function under real-world constraints and to endure over time.