Presenter’s Bios
Sudheer Chava, Cornell University
Sudheer Chava received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in 2003. Prior to that he has an MBA degree from Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore and worked as a fixed income analyst at a leading investment bank in India. He has held academic positions at University of Houston and Texas A&M University before joining Georgia Tech in 2010.
Dr. Chava has taught a variety of courses at the undergraduate and master’s level including Derivatives, Risk Management, Valuation, Cases in Financial Crisis and Credit Risk Analysis. He has also taught both theoretical and empirical finance courses at the doctoral level.
Dr. Chava’s research interests are in Credit Risk, Banking and Corporate Finance. He has published extensively in all the top journals in Finance including Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Financial Studies. His research has won a Ross award for the best paper published in Finance Research Letters in 2008, was a finalist for Brattle Prize for the best paper published in Journal of Finance in 2008 and was nominated for the Goldman Sachs award for the best paper for published in Review of Finance during 2004. Dr. Chava is the recipient of multiple external research grants such as FDIC-CFR Fellowship, Morgan Stanley Research grant and Financial Service Exchange Research grant. His papers have been presented at numerous finance conferences such as AFA, WFA, EFA, FDIC and Federal Reserve Banks and at many universities in the U.S. and abroad.
Sanjiv Das, Santa Clara University
Sanjiv Das is the William and Janice Terry Professor of Finance at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business.
He previously held faculty appointments as Associate Professor at Harvard Business School and UC Berkeley. He holds post-graduate degrees in Finance (M.Phil and Ph.D. from New York University), Computer Science (M.S. from UC Berkeley), an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, B.Com in Accounting and Economics (University of Bombay, Sydenham College), and is also a qualified Cost and Works Accountant. He is a senior editor of The Journal of Investment Management, co-editor of The Journal of Derivatives, and Associate Editor of other academic journals.
Prior to being an academic, he worked in the derivatives business in the Asia-Pacific region as a Vice-President at Citibank. His current research interests include: the modeling of default risk, machine learning, social networks, derivatives pricing models, portfolio theory, and venture capital. He has published over eighty articles in academic journals, and has won numerous awards for research and teaching. His recent book “Derivatives: Principles and Practice” was published in May 2010. He currently also serves as a Senior Fellow at the FDIC Center for Financial Research.
Vasant Dhar, New York University
Vasant Dhar is a professor at the Stern School of Business and the Center for Data Science at New York University. He is former Editor-in-Chief of the journal Big Data, and the founder of SCT Capital Management, a machine-learning-based hedge fund in New York City. Dhar’s central research question asks when we should trust AI machines that learn from data. His research has addressed this question in a number of areas including financial markets, social media and healthcare. Dhar has authored over 100 research papers, as well as articles for publications such as the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Wired, and the Harvard Business Review. He has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and National Public Radio. His recent TEDx talk, “When do we trust machines?” is available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO9D6l_THhk
Bryan Kelly, Yale School of Management and AQR Capital Management
Bryan Kelly is Professor of Finance at the Yale School of Management, a Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, Associate Director of SOM’s International Center for Finance, and is the head of machine learning at AQR Capital Management, LLC. Professor Kelly’s primary research fields are asset pricing and financial econometrics. He is interested in issues related to financial machine learning; volatility, tail risk, and correlation modeling in financial markets; banking sector systemic risk; financial intermediation; and financial networks. His papers in these areas have been published in American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Financial Studies.
He is co-editor of the Journal of Financial Econometrics and associate editor of the Journal of Finance and the Journal of Financial Economics. Before joining Yale, Kelly was a tenured professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago, a master’s degree in economics from University of California San Diego, and a PhD in finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business. Kelly worked in investment banking at Morgan Stanley prior to pursuing his PhD.
Alessio de Longis, Invesco
Alessio de Longis is a Senior Portfolio Manager and Head of Global Tactical Asset Allocation for the Invesco Investment Solutions team. In this role, he heads the group’s global tactical asset allocation and multi-asset factor rotation efforts, focusing on the development, implementation, and management of macro regime-based investment strategies across asset classes, risk premia, and factors. Additionally, he develops and manages active currency overlay strategies and solutions for multi-asset portfolios.
Mr. de Longis joined Invesco in 2019 when the firm combined with OppenheimerFunds, where he was team leader and senior portfolio manager of the Global Multi-Asset team. Between 2004 and 2013, he was a member of the OppenheimerFunds Global Debt team, where he served as currency portfolio manager and global macro strategist. He is a published author in the field of macro-based systematic factor investing and currency overlay strategies, and he isregularly featured across financial media outlets.
Mr. de Longis earned an MSc in financial economics and econometrics from the University of Essex, as well as an MA and a BA degree in economics from the University of Rome Tor
Vergata. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst® (CFA) charterholder.
Ananth Madhavan, Blackrock
Ananth Madhavan, PhD, Managing Director, is Global Head of Research for ETF and Index Investing at Blackrock, Inc. He is responsible for advancing thought leadership and innovation for iShares through research and analytics. Dr. Madhavan’s service with the firm dates back to 2003, including his years with Barclays Global Investors (BGI), which merged with BlackRock in 2009. At BGI, he was the Global Head of Trading Research and Transitions and CEO of BGI’s affiliate broker. He also worked closely with the alpha and trading teams to design and implement trading strategies to capture short horizon market opportunities.
Prior to joining BGI, Dr. Madhavan was a Managing Director of Research at ITG and a member of the firm’s management and executive committees. Previously, he was the Charles B. Thorton Professor of Finance at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California and an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Madhavan earned a BA degree from the University of Delhi, MA degree from Boston University, and a PhD in economics from Cornell University.