New York, NY, June 3, 2015

The IAQF Announces the Winners of the Fourth Annual IAQF Academic Affiliate Membership Student Competition 

The International Association for Quantitative Finance are pleased to announce the winners of the Fourth Annual Academic Affiliate Membership Student Competition. Twenty-five papers from seventeen schools were submitted to the competition in response to the competition problem, which required students to “develop a product which can be used to reduce the risk in defined benefit pension plans."

The competition submissions went through a multi-level selection process and were reviewed by the Board Selection Committee. Four teams were selected as winners, as the final tallying was too close to call. Each of the winning teams will be awarded a share of an increased prize of $2000.00 prize and will be invited to present their solutions at an IAQF sponsored event in New York.

The winners of the competition are as follows:

Team The Bulls from Baruch College, Masters in Financial Engineering program. The team was led by student team captain Scott Hounsell. Team members included Yifan Cui, Chao Feng, Yun Peng, Sam Pfeiffer, and Haotian Wu. The team worked under the direction of Dan Stefanica.

Team Greeks and Geeks from Cornell University, Financial Engineering Manhattan. The team was led by student team captain Shaojie He. Team members included Jin Li, Sandeep Saju, Mengying Zhang, Yanan Zhang, and Jiahe Zhou. The team worked under the direction of Sasha Stoikov and Victoria Averbukh.

Team Quantient Beings from the UC Berkeley, Haas School, Masters in Financial Engineering program. The team was led by student team captain Ryan Xamani. Team members included Debarshi Basu, Ye Gao, Shuang Ji, Yao-Tseng (Steven) Wang, and Chad Wildman. The team worked under the direction of Program Director, Linda Kreitzman.

Team Greeks from the University of Illinois, Master of Science in Financial Engineering program. The team was led by student team captain Xiao Liu. Team members included Anadi Gaur, Hassan Ilyas, Zeyang Peng, Shuanghui Sun, and Hanqing Wang. The team worked  under the direction of Program Director, Morton N. Lane.