Cialenco Elected Chair of National Mathematical Finance Group
Igor Cialenco, professor of applied mathematics, began his term as chair of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics Activity Group of Financial Mathematics and Engineering at the beginning of the year.
Cialenco, who serves as the Department of Applied Mathematics associate chair and graduate studies director, was elected to the two–year post by his peers in the financial engineering community. As chair, Cialenco provides leadership to create an intellectual forum for SIAM members interested in mathematical finance. Other duties include developing and overseeing programs and initiatives as well as organizing the biennial conference Conference on Financial Mathematics and Engineering in 2023, which is one of the two largest meetings for the international mathematical finance community, typically attracting more than 400 participants.
“I am honored and thankful to the financial engineering community for the given trust to lead the group for the next two years,” Cialenco says. “It is a huge responsibility, especially during these exciting times for applied mathematicians when several emerging technological and scientific areas such as machine learning are reshaping many fields of science and engineering.”
Cialenco just wrapped up a two–year term as the activity group’s program director, where he helped launch several new initiatives with other officers that he says he hopes to continue developing. During that time, the group introduced a student programming competition and a mentoring program for early career financial mathematicians from underrepresented groups.
“Together with the elected SIAM–FME officers, I aim to continue building a stronger, diverse, and global community of quantitative finance researchers and to strategically place the field of financial mathematics and engineering, through the actions of the SIAM-FME, in the fast-changing realms of applied mathematics,” Cialenco says.
SIAM is the largest society for applied mathematicians and engineers interested in quantitative methods. It offers competitions, prizes, and scholarships to sponsored summer schools on emerging topics for students. Illinois Tech students can join the society for free through an active and robust SIAM student chapter on campus. Chapter members can participate in SIAM–FME initiatives such as the programming student competition and the Gene Golub Summer School on Financial Analytics: Networks, Learning, and High-Performance Computing.
