NEWS & EVENTS

By Shawn Hutchins

This spring, the Center for Computational Finance and Economic Systems (CoFES) at Rice University celebrates a significant milestone – the twentieth anniversary of its founding in 2002.

Rooted in Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering and the Department of Statistics, CoFES has represented a cooperative effort dedicated to the quantitative study of financial markets and economic systems and their ultimate impact on society.

Decade after decade, the center’s programs have included a network of multidisciplinary faculty and students across several departments within three schools: the George R. Brown School of Engineering, the School of Social Sciences, and the Jones Graduate School of Business. 

CoFES’ initiatives in research and education, which have been supported by more than $11 million in gifts, private funding, and grants, have advanced the boundaries of statistical analysis and modeling and evolved new methods and technologies. 

“The dissemination of shared knowledge through research, curriculum, conferences and short courses has produced a pipeline of highly technical and interdisciplinary industry professionals and researchers who can rigorously analyze raw data and produce intelligent business strategies,” said Katherine Ensor, the Noah G. Harding Professor of Statistics and director of CoFES since the center’s founding. 

Quantitative methods and forecasting techniques have included broad coursework, an undergraduate minor in Financial Computation and Modeling (FCAM), and specialized graduate and undergraduate courses in the latest tools and techniques in high dimensional time-series and forecasting, quantitative risk management and financial analytics, Bayesian methods and stochastic processes, machine learning, artificial intelligence, blockchain and cryptocurrency. 

Since 2009, CoFES’ flagship event, the Eubank Conference on Real World Markets, has brought an array of subject-matter experts to explore critical assumptions and addressed a spectrum of timely and fitting topics. Follow or visit the CoFES YouTube Channel for past colloquia and special event lectures.

The April 25, 2022 conference, which examined frontiers of quantitative finance in the digital era, was commemorated as CoFES’ tenth Eubank Conference on its twentieth anniversary. 

“The historical event served as a homecoming that featured an amazing line-up of alumni who are architects of the field and leaders in navigating the forces that shape financial markets,” said Ensor. 

Rudy Guerra, professor and chair of the Department of Statistics kicked off the conference.

“Houston and Rice University are uniquely poised to thrive in a diverse innovative landscape," said Guerra, who also cited that 24 companies on the 2021 Fortune 500 list are headquartered in the Houston metro area, thus ranking Houston third in the country behind New York and Chicago. 

“More importantly, these companies include diverse industry sectors that range from energy to communications, real estate, food distribution, specialty retail, engineering and construction, and waste management,” added Guerra.

“In a world of seemingly unlimited data and expanding computing power, there is a need for us to collaborate across disciplines and be more forward-looking,” said Ensor. “On our list of initiatives for the next decade is to grow our partnerships – both in academia and industry – so that we can foster more interdisciplinary research projects. This directly dovetails into new technical pathways, grows curricular ideas and expands opportunities.”