At convocation on June 14th, we saw the 40,000th alumnus from the Faculty of Mathematics walk across the stage. After our October convocation proceedings, we can now celebrate 40,878 alumni around the world.
At universities, we devote a lot of attention to celebrating the significant figures of our past, both to reflect their glory and to inspire the next generation. Though celebrating the giants of our past is important, we are always looking to the future; to solve the new problems, to define new areas of research, and to prepare the giants of tomorrow.
One of those research areas is fintech. Industry interest in financial technology is exploding around the world. The societal demand for timely, impactful fintech research is growing.
Within the Faculty of Mathematics, we have all the building blocks to excel in fintech: programs in computational finance and accounting; strength in computer science; and relationships with insurance companies.
Those relationships started back in 1962, when three insurance companies with head offices in Waterloo approached President Hagey to extend co-operative education to include mathematics. Yet, it is not just our relationships that make us strong in this area, but our research as well. In the past few months, Waterloo received the #1 ranking for insurance and actuarial publications.
We are also conducting research in the following areas:
- Applications of machine learning and predictive analytics in finance (You can read about the work of Professor Emeritus Peter Forsyth and Professor Yuying Li in this area.)
- Modern practical optimization techniques for asset allocation, portfolio management, and rebalancing, such as the work done by Tony Wirjanto, Chengguo Weng, and Danqiao Guo.
- Efficient computational techniques for evaluating and hedging complex portfolios of financial instruments, including new methods to efficiently compute first- and second-order sensitivities
- Techniques for high-frequency trading including transaction cost analysis and single asset and portfolio strategies
- Foundations and applications of blockchain
- Applications and expertise in cybersecurity and privacy
- Emerging technologies
We have many alumni working in finance – including Rudy Karsan, founder of KENEXA, and Michelle Hung, author of The Sassy Investor. And we continue to develop programs and institutes linked to finance to prepare the next generation of leaders, always with a strong basis in math.
I invite you to read about the work being done within the faculty and by our alumni in these fields.
