CFEM Fireside Chat: A Veteran Trader Speaks to Emerging Women Leaders of Finance

With over 20 years of experience trading equity-linked and convertible securities at multiple major institutions, including D.E. Shaw and Credit Suisse, Ms. Marshak shared her deep knowledge of the markets and her profession. Ms. Marshak started her career as a trading assistant at D.E. Shaw, developed her product and trading expertise as a junior trader at KBC Financial Products, and eventually moved on to lead her desk at Credit Suisse and Piper Sandler. She provided candid insights in overcoming industry challenges where women are underrepresented. The group discussed work-life balance, the... Read more

Zoe Wang

CFEM alum Zoe Wang published in top quant journal

By: Pat Gillespie

Zoe Wang, who received her Master of Engineering degree in financial engineering in December 2020, published a paper in the summer 2021 issue of The Journal of Financial Data Science, arguably the top quant publication. Read more

"Buy-Side Quant of the Year": CFEM Professor Marcos López de Prado and Collaborator Alex Lipton Earn Highest Honors in Risk Awards 2021

By: Roselle Bajet

Their innovative solution involves heat potentials, demonstrating the power of mathematical physics in financial applications. While the collaborators have only just started working with each other, both have longstanding ties to the CFEM community. Currently a Visiting Professor at CFEM, as well as the Global Head of Quantitative Research and Development at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Marcos López de Prado has been teaching the class "Advances in Financial Machine Learning" for several years. He has also served as the advisor for graduate student teams in their capstone projects. Both... Read more

ORIE MFEs celebrate their achievements

By: Roselle Bajet

In her opening remarks, CFEM Director Victoria Averbukh encouraged students to be true to themselves and remember to make time for their other talents to flourish alongside their financial careers. ORIE Director Mark Lewis stressed the new responsibilities that come with being Cornell alumni. As Director of M.Eng. Studies Kathryn Caggiano noted to the new graduates, "Pay it forward with your time, with your experience, and with your empathy." In what has become a true CFEM graduation tradition, Senior Research Associate Sasha Stoikov offered a special musical performance to remind students of... Read more

Cornell MFEs Compete in Practitioner-Led Course to Build Trading Algorithms and Learn from the Best

By: Roselle Bajet

One of the defining characteristics of Cornell ORIE'S Financial Engineering degree is the semester students spend learning exclusively from financial practitioners. Moreover, the coursework taught by our practitioner instructors changes in line with the quantitative skills most in demand in the financial industry. This, in fact, is what led us to start the Financial Data Science Certificate in the spring of 2016. Continuing in this tradition, we introduced a new course called "Trading FX, Rates, and Crypto" in the fall of 2020. The course is taught by Giuseppe Nuti, Head of Machine Learning... Read more

The Markets Have Spoken: What Stocks Do Democrats and Republicans Actually Value?

In July 2020, a team of Cornell Financial Engineering Manhattan (CFEM) students won the 9th annual International Association of Quantitative Finance (IAQF) student competition. The students were Vineel Yellapantula, Nikunj Agarwal, Harsh Puria and Subham Behera. The paper (one of 36 submissions from 20 academic programs) was selected to be one of 5 winning IAQF papers . The aim of the competition: to construct a DEM portfolio (one that would do well if Biden won the election), and a REP portfolio (one that would do well if Trump won). Julius Baer, a Swiss private bank, had constructed such... Read more

Professor López de Prado Appointed Global Head of Quantitative Research and Development

By: Roselle Bajet

Prof. López de Prado's department is tasked with applying a systematic, science-based approach to developing and implementing investment strategies. This multi-disciplinary team will draw on the latest scientific developments, in areas such as machine learning, big data and high-performance computing. Prof. López de Prado is a recognized expert in financial machine learning. His innovations have covered and connected a wide range of subjects, including overfitting prevention, signal processing, quantum computing, stochastic optimal control, robust convex optimization, and market microstructure... Read more

CFEM Director Victoria Averbukh featured in Quant Summit Virtual. Register with code "QuantSpeaker" for 20% off.

CFEM at Quant Summit Virtual

By: Roselle Bajet

Register for the Quant Summit Virtual from July 13-16, featuring our practitioner-lecturers and project sponsors, as well as CFEM Director Victoria Averbukh! For more details, check out the event website: https://events.risk.net/quantsummitusa . Read more

CFEM Has the Winning Team in IAQF's Ninth Annual Academic Affiliate Membership Student Competition

By: Roselle Bajet

Out of 36 teams, the Cornell team was one of five that came out on top. All members of Team Quants by Ganges are in CFEM's Class of 2020: Team Captain Nikunj Agarwal, Subham Behera, Harsh Parsuram Puria, and Vineel Yellapantula. CFEM Senior Research Associate Sasha Stoikov was their advisor. For more information, including the link to CFEM's winning paper, read the official announcement . Read more

NYU Langone Brookyn ER Department posing with donated PPE

Cornell Alumna Steps Up to Support NYC

By: Roselle Bajet

“When COVID first affected Wuhan, my family became very concerned. We saw how much suffering the disease brought to those infected and healthcare workers selflessly fighting for their patients. When it started in the U.S., I immediately thought about how this could become a great danger for the healthcare workers here. My friend who works as a nurse said that they were only assigned one N95 mask for 3 months. That’s when I made a decision to help with this cause and donate PPE to healthcare workers,” said Annabelle. At first, Annabelle was able to connect with an extensive network through her... Read more