Master of Financial Engineering Program

Peter Po-Chang Chien graduated from Cornell University with a Master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Prior to that, he graduated in three years with a Bachelors degree in EECS with high honors and a minor in Business Administration, both from UC Berkeley. Previously, Peter worked for Cypress Semiconductor as a Senior Engineer, where he specialized in gigabit-SERDES applications. Peter started to follow the market keenly while taking courses at Cornell's Johnson Business School, eventually deciding to take finance to a professional level. In his spare time, Peter travels extensively. Some of the most recent destinations include Tibet and Rajasthan, India. He has enjoyed dancing competitive ballroom and is a gold level dancer on the Berkeley Ballroom team. Peter speaks fluent Mandarin and reads/writes both simplified and traditional Chinese. He was the past president of the MFE’s Financial Engineering Student Association (FESA) and will be spending his winter internship period with Credit Suisse HK under the equity derivatives trading group.

Soohyun Cho holds a bachelors degree in Business Management from Yonsei University in Seoul, S. Korea, where her studies focused on finance and statistics. During her senior year, she interned at Deutsche Bank in Hong Kong, which introduced her to the world of investment banking. After graduating with honors, she joined Deutsche Bank in Seoul as a member of the Equity Sales team. For the past 5 years, Soohyun has been analyzing stocks and companies as part of servicing renowned foreign asset managers and institutional clients with advice and recommendations on investing in Korean equities. She gained broad-based knowledge of various industries and asset classes through this experience, but hopes the quantitative skills obtained from MFE will help her expand her career into structured equity derivatives. In her free time, she enjoys searching for new and hip restaurants as well as playing competitive sports.

Dae-Il (Dale) Choi received his PhD in physics from the University of Texas, Austin and a BS in physics from the Korea Advanced Inst. of Science and Technology (KAIST) in South Korea. After working as a post-doctoral scholar at Drexel University for two years, he moved to NASA Goddard Space Flight Center to work as a research scientist in numerical gravitational wave astrophysics group. During 6 years at Goddard, he played a key role in developing large scale scientific simulation software based on finite difference methods to solve Einstein field equations. He applied the simulation code to attack challenging problems in numerical general relativity and gravitational wave astrophysics. Right before joining the MFE program, he held an outstanding scientist fellowship, awarded by South Korean government. Throughout his academic career, he carried out a number of cutting edge research projects in computational physics that lead to over 18 publications in leading physics and astrophysics journals. His interest in financial engineering grew out of the realization that the quantitative and analytic skill sets that made him successful in physics could be also applied to many more exciting and challenging problems in finance. Through the MFE program, he would like to build a solid background in finance while readying his quantitative skills for a career in the financial industry. He enjoys traveling, hiking, and listening to music.

Arthur Cunha worked as an Emerging Markets Credit Exotics Trader at Deutsche Bank New York, where he traded structured credit products for corporate and sovereign clients in Latin America. Prior to that, he was a desk quant in the JPMorgan X-Asset quantitative research group, working on models for pricing and hedging credit derivatives, plain vanilla rates, and commodities, as well as assisting traders and senior management on using and understanding the models. He worked at JPMorgan both in London and in New York. Before joining JPMorgan, he studied electrical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he earned a doctorate studying information theory and time series analysis. By joining the MFE program, Arthur plans to build on his experience trading and modeling credit derivatives in order to exploit the structuring and trading of other asset classes. Fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, Arthur is particularly interested in Emerging Markets. His hobbies include tennis, skiing, traveling, and playing the guitar.

Zhenduo Du obtained his BA Degree in Finance from Tsinghua University, one of the top universities in China. He first enrolled in the Department of Precision Instruments and Mechanology and then transferred to Department of Finance in his sophomore year, ranking at the top in both majors. He interned at China’s Central Bank, The People’s Bank of China, in which he was assigned as an Analyst Intern to the Financial Research Division and was in charge of China’s stock market studies. He won another internship in China’s Investment Corporation, where he worked as Associate Intern in its Strategic Asset Allocation & Research Department. He was responsible for sector research to suggest asset allocation strategies in different kinds of investment vehicles, such as equity, fixed income, PE and hedge funds. Post MFE, he would like to pursue a challenging career in finance. Among other things, he enjoys reading, aerobics, and travelling.

Russell Elliott obtained a BS degree in Mathematics from Morehouse College and a BS degree in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in 2006. After graduating from both institutions he began working for Northrop Grumman as an aerodynamic analyst. While at Northrop Grumman, Russell applied his quantitative skills and knowledge of various programming languages to develop and implement performance algorithms to aid in the flight performance predictions of the Global Hawk reconnaissance aircraft. He was also tasked with utilizing his knowledge of computational fluid dynamics to design streamlined aerodynamic structures for Northrop Grumman products and company funded laminar flow research projects. Russell has enjoyed the challenge of modeling complex systems and would like to pair that with his interest in the financial markets. In his free time Russell enjoys reading, playing tennis and traveling.

Yevgeniy Fotinich graduated with honors from Bauman State Technical University, Moscow with a BS degree in Aerospace Engineering. He continued his education at the University of California, Los Angeles where he received a PhD in Mechanical Engineering. The emphasis of his dissertation was on modeling the non-linear behavior of ferroelectric materials. He developed non-linear constitutive equations for piezoceramic materials and implemented them in a finite element software which was applied to stress analysis of microstructures built of piezoceramics. After graduation, he worked in a consulting company, where he was engaged in Real Options Calculator development. Prior to the MFE program, he was a senior software engineer at Hewlett-Packard, implementing object oriented models for a proprietary expert system. In his spare time, Yevgeny enjoys various sporting activities, such as skiing, hockey, and rollerblading.

Phillip Gillespie graduated with honors from Georgia Institute of Technology with a BS in Industrial and Systems Engineering. His senior thesis entailed railway traffic optimization for the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority by developing a program that simulated their train network. Upon graduating, Phillip worked as a management consultant at Deloitte & Touche where he created and presented key deliverables to senior executives of top tier financial firms. He then joined the Electronic Sales Trading team at Lehman Brothers, where he advised clients on algorithmic and DMA trading in the Pan-Asia market. Phillip also managed a team responsible for bringing in over 200 global clients to trade in Asia through Lehman Brothers. Through his interaction with statistical arbitrage and quant-based funds, he became interested in pursuing a Master’s in Financial Engineering. In addition to his studies, Phillip is one of two students selected from the MFE program to manage a fund with asset of over $1 million. He has been actively trading spot and options FX for over four years and has a keen understanding of the macro economic factors influencing currency trading. After graduation, he hopes to leverage his sales and consulting skills with knowledge of financial engineering in an asset management or trading role. In his free time, Phillip is actively involved in team sports, such as basketball and soccer.

Alexandre Jacquet attended a top French Engineering School, the Ecole Centrale Paris (ECP), where he focused his projects on Quantitative Finance. He studied the application of Stochastic Models in Finance through the implementation of several methods used in American Options pricing. In addition, his strong interest in economics and financial markets was reinforced both by his readings and the people he has met. While studying at the ECP, he was selected to attend internship programs at Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan in London. Last summer, he interned on two trading desks at JPMorgan. He built portfolio management tools for the Credit Proprietary Trading desk and the Emerging Markets Hybrids Trading desk. Since then, he has been working at Goldman Sachs, London on a cross assets Origination-Structuring team. Through intensive programming and interaction with several teams on the trading floor, he built tools for issuance, operations, sales and trading groups. He joined the MFE to gain an excellent understanding of quantitative finance and aims to work as a trader in an investment bank or a hedge fund. His hobbies include sports (tennis, basketball and running), reading, and travelling.

Neha Jain worked as a Financial Trader and a Risk Controls Analyst in energy trading at Musket Corporation, where she was responsible for crude oil, gasoline and heating oil derivatives worth over USD 200 million before enrolling in the Berkeley MFE. Prior to working in trading and risk controls, she worked as a Risk Specialist at Wood Group Integrated Plant Solutions, assessing the risk on gas turbine maintenance projects worth over USD 10-100 million. Neha holds an MBA from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies and a BTech from the Institute of Technology and Management. Neha was drawn to the MFE program by her desire to expand her theoretical knowledge to complement her risk controls and trading experience. Post MFE, she is interested in taking up a risk, strategy or trading position in a bank or a hedge fund. In her free time, Neha enjoys traveling and reading.