Get ready for Spring 2026! QFC (Quantitative Finance Concentration) courses are now open for registration. Whether you’re interested in data-driven investing, financial modeling, or risk management, these courses offer hands-on experience with the tools and techniques shaping today’s financial world. Don’t miss the chance to build your quantitative skills and connect with industry experts. Spots fill up fast!
Math 585
Algorithmic Trading
(David Ye)
MW 1:25 – 2:40 pm
Learn quantitative trading and investment strategies applicable in trading & investment firms and banks.
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This course explores the complexity of financial data and the challenges in modeling them. Increasing portions of trading and investment activities are now fully automated. Many key decisions are driven by computer algorithms and models built on top of ever-larger financial data sets. Students will learn a variety of financial data sets, perform research and analysis on these data, and develop mathematical and risk management models for profitable trading and investment strategies.
Career Target: Trading firms, asset management, bank trading desk, hedge funds.
Math/IDS 586
Data Science & Decision Optimization in Banking & Financial Services
(Dr. Hengzhong Liu)
Tu 3:00-5:30 pm
Learn how data and decision science are used in retail and commercial banks.
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How to offer the right product to the right customer at the right price through the right channel with the right incentives at the right time? How to find the weights of a set of elements in a given set to maximize a given financial objective subject to the constraints of each element? How to compete on price and product in a game environment? Or how to manage risk and capital to navigate complex regulatory environments? These decision optimization problems are at the heart of retail banking and finance.
Career Target: Retail and commercial banks, loans, credit cards, mortgages, deposit products, etc.
Math/IDS 583
Risk Management & Derivative
(Dr. Hengzhong Liu, Massimo Cutuli, Prof. David Ye)
W 8:45 – 11:15 am
Understand risk modeling and management in Finance.
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As machine learning and AI continue to transform the financial landscape, it’s more important than ever to effectively measure and manage various risks. If you’re looking to turn your quantitative background into a fulfilling career in finance and banking, this course is designed to pave your way into financial risk management.
The course covers fundamental theories, quantitative methods, and industry practices for identifying, measuring, managing various types of risk, such as market risk, credit risk, liquidity risk, operational risk, and investment risk.
Career Target: all financial firms, quantitative risk modeling, risk manager, climate risk,
IDS 599
AI in Finance
(Prof. David Ye)
MW 11:45 – 1:00 pm
How Gen AI could transform works in Finance and beyond.
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Target: position yourself better in the age of AI in any financial firm and role.
Since the introduction of ChatGPT, the world has been swept by the generative AI wave. While LLMs are still in the early stage of deployment, they have shown great promise to transform our future work with significant productivity gains. At the same time, it poses significant risks and may cause dislocations of many jobs. Like many technology shocks came before it, generative AI will create winners and losers, depending on how we individually adapt to the change.
The purpose of this course is to explore these potentials and risks for banking and finance careers. The key learning objective is to equip students with a good knowledge of the underlying technology beyond the “black box”, that is, Large Language Model (LLM), and how they can leverage its potentials in their future work in Finance.
IDS 598.01
Mini Course in Quant Finance – Crypto Trading
(Dr. Hanchao Yang)
TuTh 11:45AM – 1:00PM
01/07/2026 – 02/17/2026
Crypto Trading.
This course offers a comprehensive, hands-on journey from trading idea generation to the full development of quantitative strategies. Using real data from the cryptocurrency market, students will learn to design, model, test, evaluate, and refine their strategies. The course emphasizes interdisciplinary modeling, guiding students to draw on concepts from fields such as chaos theory and complex networks to deepen their understanding of market behavior.
The course also offers a brief introduction to blockchain technology, covering core concepts such as encryption, consensus mechanisms, distributed ledger architecture, and mining processes. In addition, it explores current topics in the cryptocurrency space, including stablecoins, market manipulation, money laundering, DeFi, NFT, and other emerging trends.
The course has two main learning objectives: to design, develop, and deploy a quantitative trading strategy, and to gain a comprehensive understanding of the cryptocurrency market.
Solid understanding of programming is required, preferably in Python. Class projects will require students to execute their mathematical ideas and models into trading strategies, and these are accomplished through programming skills.
This course will be taught by Dr. Hanchao Yang. After he obtained his PhD in Financial Engineering from Steven Institute Technology in 2016, he founded a trading quantitative firm Captain Capital Management LLC with strategies being deployed in both stock markets as well as cryptocurrencies. Students will benefit from his deep understanding of trading market structures and related quantitative algorithms across multiple markets. Dr. Yang has extensive experience in quantitative trading across multiple markets.
Career Target: Crypto trading and research firms, hedge funds, etc.
IDS 598.02
Mini Course in Quant Finance – Data Science for Financial Crime Detection (Dr. Yimin Yang)
M 3:05PM – 5:35PM
02/23/2026 – 04/06/2026
Financial Crime Detection.
What is AML? It is one of today’s hottest areas in risk management. Traditionally a compliance function, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) (and Know-Your-Customer, KYC) is becoming a critical gatekeeper to safeguard banks and financial institutions. Fueled by recent cryptocurrency mania, AML jobs are expected to be in high demand and job security is guaranteed. Its required risk-based approach is more challenging than typical fraud detection. With its massive data sets, quantitative talents find opportunities in a field traditionally appealing to policy and procedure expertise. This course introduces basic concepts and requirements for AML/KYC, as well as certain quantitative techniques to prepare students for a career in AML/KYC.
This course will be taught by Dr. Yimin Yang, who has extensive background in quantitative modeling in finance. He received PhD in Math from the University of Chicago in 1992. He has 25+ years of industry experience, including senior positions on large banks such as PNC and Truist as well as financial consulting firm Protiviti. He recently co-founded a commercial bank in Atlanta. He has been a speaker to QFC courses over the last two years, and he advised our students on career paths and research projects.
Career Target: banks and consulting firms.