Du, Yunson – Co-Chair of the Board of Directors
Dr. Yunson Du (8307) is the Deputy Head of Sales & Trading, SMBC Americas Division. He joined the bank more than 25 years ago as a quant and then a trader. During his trading career, he has employed timely tail risk hedges and successfully avoided significant losses during many financial crises. As he takes on more management responsibility since 2008, he has led the business expansion by providing vision, taking important business initiatives, and also hiring and motivating talents.
Recently his main interests are global portfolio trading book, Electronic Trading, and modern trading/booking systems. Prior to his SMBC career, he briefly worked at a Hedge fund, Cooper/Neff Associates, which traded equity options at CBOE. Dr. Du received his Ph.D. in Physics in 1993 from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a BS in Space Physics in 1988 from USTC.
Ye, B. Hilda – Co-Chair of the Board of Directors
Dr. B. Hilda Ye (8308) is a faculty member at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. Her research interests are in the areas of B cell immunology and cancers arising from the immune cells. She and her colleagues are studying how transcription regulation and cell signaling events govern lymphocyte differentiation and lymphoma development. They employ a variety of experimental systems and place a particular emphasis on mechanism-based novel therapies for these cancers. In addition to laboratory research, Dr. Ye is also very active in graduate education, research mentoring, and community science education.
Dr. Ye received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from USTC in 1988, followed by a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Kansas in 1992. Before joining the Einstein faculty in 1998, she completed her Postdoctoral training at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Chen, Dingju (Steve) – Director
Steve Chen (7701) studied mathematics at USTC from 1977 to 1982. After graduation, he spent three years at the Institute of System Sciences of the Chinese Academy in Beijing. From 1985, he studied at Cornell University, obtaining a master’s degree in computer sciences in 1988 and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics in 1991. He has over 20 years of experience on Wall Street, working as a quantitative equity strategist with Lehman Brothers, Credit Suisse, and recently BofA Securities. He is currently a managing director and the US regional head of equity Quantitative Strategist Group in the Global Banking and Markets division, developing pricing models, trading strategies, and data analytics for the global equity business.
Zhang, Joy – Director
Joy Zhang (813/8112) is a Managing Director, the Head of Securitized Products Solutions Research at MSCI, leading a team that develops solutions for global Securitized Products investors, including valuation and factor models, investment analysis tools, risk analytics, methodologies for climate and physical risk disclosure for Securitized Products.
Previously, Joy worked at Credit Suisse, responsible for mortgage collateral modelling and regulatory modelling (CCAR and PPNR) for the Securitized Products trading desk and Goldman Sachs, responsible for developing a firm-wide risk management system.
Joy is actively involved in professional organization within the financial industry and is passionate about serving the community. She is currently the president of The Chinese Finance Association (TCFA) and deputy regional director of Professional Risk Managers’ International Association (PRMIA) New York chapter.
She received Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of Kansas in 1994 and B.S. in Chemistry from University of Science and Technology of China in 1986. Additionally, she earned an M.S. in Computational Finance from Carnegie Mellon University in 2006.
Chen, Gang – Director
Dr. Gang Chen (83SHAO) is a Senior Vice President at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.. Dr. Chen joined Regeneron in 1999 as an R&D Scientist. Dr. Chen has led Regeneron’s Protein Expression Sciences group. Dr. Chen and his team’s functional responsibilities at Regeneron include development of production cell lines, antibody discovery, and technology development. Dr. Chen is a major contributor of Regeneron’s VelociMabÒ technology platform.
Dr. Chen received Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of Washington in 1993. In his postdoctoral training, he studied tumor suppressor and DNA repair genes at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center. He was an undergraduate student in the class of 83 Shao and later 838 at USTC from 1983 to 1987.
Ni, Hong – Director
Dr. Hong Ni (8703) specializes in global quantitative equity trading. He has spent over twenty years building mathematical model-driven trading businesses at Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, CICC, and Jump Trading. He is also the founder and managing partner of Radium Fund Advisors.
Dr. Ni majored in Chemistry during his undergraduate studies at the University of Science and Technology of China. He received his Ph.D. degree in Physical Chemistry from Columbia University in 1996.
Li, Ke (Rick) – Director
Rick (92SHAO) is a partner at Goldman Sachs and serves on the Global Markets Investment Committee. He is the global head of FICC trading strategists and also oversees FICC Product Engineering in the Global Markets Division.
Previously Rick managed a number of strategists and engineering teams, including global Commodities sales and trading strategies, Global Emerging Market strategies, ION engineering, Global credit strategies, and Principal Funding and Investments strategies. He joined Goldman Sachs in 2005 and was named managing director in 2010 and partner in 2018.
Rick has been very active in USTC alumni events. He served as a speaker and panel moderator in a number of USTCAAGNY summit conferences, including being one of the keynote speakers at the first summit in 2014. He also sponsored several alumni reception events hosted by the association and mentored young alumni inside and outside of his company.
Rick earned a BS in Mathematics and Physics from the University of Science and Technology of China in 1997 and a PhD in Physics from Yale University in 2005.
Zhang, Pusheng – Director
Pusheng Zhang (9411) is the Head of Machine Learning at Cubist Systematic Strategies, one of the world’s premier investment firms and the quant arm of Point72 Asset Management, and bridges AI/GenAI technology and trading for successful strategies. Prior to Cubist, Pusheng was a founding researcher and team lead of AI Research at Citadel, one of first AI research teams in the hedge fund industry. Before Citadel, Pusheng worked as a research and engineering leader at Uber and Microsoft on machine learning, high performance computing, search and maps.
He finished his Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Minnesota, and B.S. degree in Computer Science at the University of Science and Technology of China. He served as the president of USTC Alumni Association in Greater Seattle in 2012-2016.
Wei, Rui – Director
Dr. Rui Wei (0104), co-founder and managing partner of Scientech Research Capital, earned his B.S. degree in physics from USTC and a Ph.D. in high energy physics from Stony Brook University. Starting his career in finance at KCG/Virtu, he played a key role in various aspects of quantitative trading. Standing out in client market making research, he took charge of the new prop trading business, leading the team to deliver consistent profits. Driven by his passion for applying math and physics to financial challenges, he co-founded Scientech Research Capital. Despite weathering the 2020 financial market storm, SRC, now represented by a team of scientists and technologists, has successfully established footprints in global electronic markets. Dr. Wei remains dedicated to exploring cutting-edge AI technology in finance and expanding the quantitative investment business. Having received support from USTC alumni, he is now passionate about giving back to the community.
Peng, Jingjiang – Director
Jingjiang Peng (01SHAO) has more than 12 years working experience in quantitative trading on Wall Street. Currently he is Portfolio Manager at a global leading quantitative hedge fund. The fund is trading global equity, option, future, foreign exchange rates, commodities, fixed income etc. Jingjiang is in charge of running an equity portfolio on statistical arbitrage strategies, actively trading across US, Europe, China, Japan and other Asian countries, and South American countries. Before the current job, Jingjiang was Portfolio Manager at Engineers Gate. Prior to Engineers Gate, Jingjiang served as Executive Director at Morgan Stanley Electronic Trading Lab(ETL) working on global statistical arbitrage research and portfolio trading optimization.
Jingjiang Peng is a PhD candidate in the department of statistics at University of Wisconsin at Madison. He holds Master degree of Statistics from University of Wisconsin at Madison, and Master degree of Mathematical Finance from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He graduated from Special Class for Gifted Young in USTC with a BS in Mathematics.