Data, Intuition, Models and Theories

We are very pleased to host Professor Emanuel Derman, Columbia University.

Abstract:

You can try to understand the world using data, intuition, models and theories. Raw data has no voice. It takes models, theories and intuition to make use of data.

Models are metaphors that explain the world we don’t understand, in terms of worlds we do. They tell you only what something is more or less like.

Theories are descriptions that try to tell you what something really is.

It takes great intuition to discover a correct theory.

Emanuel is a professor at Columbia University, where he directs their program in financial engineering. He is the author of My Life As A Quant. His latest book is Models.Behaving.Badly: Why Confusing Illusion with Reality Can Lead to Disasters,On Wall Street and in Life.

He was born in South Africa but has lived most of his professional life in Manhattan in New York City, where he has made contributions to several fields. He started out as a theoretical physicist, doing research on unified theories of elementary particle interactions. He worked at AT&T Bell Laboratories in the 1980s. From 1985 to 2002 he worked on Wall Street, running quantitative strategies research groups in fixed income, equities and risk management, and was appointed a managing director at Goldman Sachs & Co. in 1997. The financial models he developed there, the Black-Derman-Toy interest rate model and the Derman-Kani local volatility model, have become widely used industry standards.

He has a B.Sc. from University of Cape Town in Physics, and a PhD in Theoretical Physics from Columbia University.

Here's the link to his blog: http://www.emanuelderman.com (http://www.emanuelderman.com/) and Twitter profile https://twitter.com/EmanuelDerman .