Nassim Nicholas Talem PhD is an essayist, belletrist, & researcher only interested in one single topic, chance (particularly extreme & rare events, the "Black Swans" i.e. outliers); but it falls at the intersection of philosophy/epistemology (skepticism; knowledge about the dynamics of history; inferential claims), philosophy/ethics (stoicism facing random events; theories of nonhedonic happiness), mathematical sciences (probability theory, statistical physics), social science/finance (opacity & decision making under incomplete information), and cognitive science (the mental biases making us "fooled" by randomness). He mainly derives his intuitions from a 2-decade long and intense practice of derivatives trading ("nondull" activities with plenty of randomness. Academic & Teaching: Starting September 2007, London Business School (visiting 3 months a year while living mostly in NY) : Professor of ... Marketing (sic!) & co-director of the Decision Science Laboratory (Black Swans are mainly positive "hits"). Dan Goldstein ( also Wiki) and I are starting the "ecological uncertainty" project running a family of experiments on the intuition of randomness. On leave as the Dean's Professor in the Sciences of Uncertainty University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Fellow & Adjunct Professor of Mathematics at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences of New York University (since 1999), and affiliated faculty, Wharton School Financial Institutions Center. My most enjoyable teaching experience is the 2 --day seminar I co-teach with Paul Wilmott twice a year. Trading/Finance: Currently Founder, Empirica LLC, which owns interests in hedge funds, and operates a research laboratory in London Empirica Laboratory Limited and a Hedging operation (no, it is not a "hedge fund" in the common accepted sense as the bulk of the business consists in portfolio protection packages. We only called it a HF in May-October 2001). Was inducted in the Derivatives Strategy Derivatives Hall of Fame (Feb 2001). I was mostly a prop trader until 1993, then became more arbitrage oriented. I held positions of managing director and head trader at Union Bank of Switzerland, worldwide chief derivatives trader for currencies, commodities and non-dollar fixed income at CS-First Boston, chief currency derivatives trader for Banque Indosuez (age 25), Managing Director and worldwide head of financial option arbitrage at CIBC-Wood Gundy, derivatives arbitrage trader at Bankers Trust, proprietary trader at BNP-Paribas, as well as independent option market maker on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (...). Current Editorial Boards and Scientific Committees (that I remember): U.S. Secretary of Defense's Cross-Disciplinary Highland Panel, Journal of Alternative Investments, Warsaw Institute of Psychology in Business, Université Paris-Dauphine DESS 203, etc. Current Corporate Boards: Centaurus Capital LP Alpha Fund, Centaurus Kappa Fund. Education: includes an MBA from Wharton, and a Ph.D. from the University of Paris (Paris 9 Dauphine). The Ph.D. committee included: Hélyette Geman, Marco Avellaneda, Nicole Elkaroui, Dilip Madan, & Jacques Hamon.
Tags: Markets Randomness Epistemology Black Swan Synergy MNNnyc
