The seminar takes place in the Spring of 2026, Thursdays, 7:40 pm — 8:55 pm.
Location: Mathematics Building, Room 207
For directions, please see Directions to Campus and Directions to Mathematics Building (Morningside Campus Map).
Organizer: Jaehyuk Choi
Schedule of Presentations
Scroll down for the Schedule of Past Presentations.
Thursday, January 22, 2026
Title: Introduction to Spring MAFN Courses (Credit Analytics, Generative AI, and others)
Speaker: Steven Zhu / David Li, Laura Leal, and Others.
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Thursday, January 29, 2026
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Speaker: Konstantin Kuchenmeister
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Thursday, February 5, 2026
Title: Trading Volatility in Commodity Markets
Speaker: Ilia Bouchouev Ph.D., Pentathlon Investments, LLC
Dr. Ilia Bouchouev is the former President of Koch Global Partners where he launched and managed global derivatives trading business for over 20 years and was recognized as one of the pioneers in energy options trading. He is currently a managing partner at Pentathlon Investments and an adjunct professor at New York University, where he teaches energy trading at The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He is also a senior research fellow with The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.
Ilia Bouchouev published in top academic journals on energy markets and derivatives modelling. He is frequently quoted by Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, many other news providers, and on social media.
He is the author of the book “Virtual Barrels,” and he recently launched a YouTube channel on quantitative commodities trading.
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Thursday, February 12, 2026
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Speaker: Shyam Madhavan, Managing Director, Head of Enterprise Risk, Mizuho Americas
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Thursday, February 19, 2026
Title: Introduction to Quantitative Balance Sheet Strategy (QBSS) in Commercial Banks [Lecture Series: 1/4]
Speaker: Greg Borovykh
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Thursday, February 26, 2026
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Speaker: Florent Cohen, Fixed Income Chief Risk Officer at Jefferies Group LLC
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Thursday, March 5, 2026
Title: Kelly Criterion for one and several investments and its calculation
Speaker: Mikhail Smirnov
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Kelly criterion, which is an optimal fixed-fraction betting strategy in favorable games was introduced by J.L.Kelly of Bell Labs in 1956. It was further applied by E.Thorpe who solved Blackjack and stock warrant arbitrage to gambling and investment situations. In financial markets Kelly criterion is known as a Merton optimal growth portfolio strategy. E.Thorp using 1926-1984 data found SP500 index optimal Kelly leverage to be 117%. We extend Thorp and find that more recently 1996-2024 SP500 Kelly leverage was significantly higher at 240%, discuss fractional Kelly investing, calculate multivariable US stocks/bonds/corporate bonds Kelly ratios and propose methodologies for practically calculating them.
Thursday, March 12, 2026
Title: Introduction to Quantitative Balance Sheet Strategy (QBSS) in Commercial Banks [Lecture Series: 2/4]
Speaker: Greg Borovykh
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Thursday, March 19, 2026 – SPRING BREAK
Thursday, March 26, 2026
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Thursday, APRIL 2, 2026
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Thursday, APRIL 9, 2026
Title: Introduction to Quantitative Balance Sheet Strategy (QBSS) in Commercial Banks [Lecture Series: 3/4]
Speaker: Greg Borovykh
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Thursday, APRIL 16, 2026
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Thursday, APRIL 23, 2026
Title: Introduction to Quantitative Balance Sheet Strategy (QBSS) in Commercial Banks [Lecture Series: 4/4]
Speaker: Greg Borovykh
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Thursday, APRIL 30, 2026
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Speaker: Ioannis Kyriakou, Professor of Actuarial Finance, Bayes Business School
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