Ben Van Vliet

Notable Quote
There’s nothing cooler than automated trading. As an emerging discipline, automated trading covers quantitative finance, trading strategy, computer programming, risk management, project management, and even organizational structure and behavior. And Chicago is the best place in the world to study automated trading, because so many trading firms, exchanges and hedge funds are tackling the competitive issues right in the front yard of the Stuart School’s downtown campus. Chicago has a long history of trading, but at the same time is driving the innovations that will define the future of trading.

Notable Vignette
I came to Stuart in 1997 to study financial markets. Mostly, I did so because every class offered sounded interesting and exciting. The program was tailor-made for where I wanted to go in my career. After graduation I stayed on and became a faculty member, constructing a three course sequence in programming for quantitative finance and trading. While most graduate programs follow a prescribed curriculum, the faculty at Stuart is always innovating, always updating the curriculum with real world changes in the financial markets and cutting edge techniques, strategies and technologies from academia. Ten years later, I’ve written three books, several academic articles and contribute regularly to Automated Trader magazine. Only at Stuart was I able to innovate at the forefront of trading. Only at Stuart was I able to learn at the cutting edge of finance.

What excites me about Stuart
What excites me most about Stuart is its location. Not just its geographic location, its social and academic position as well. Being at the center of one of the world’s major financial centers, with leading academics in the field, puts me in touch with the people and places and ideas where trading and trading ideas happen. I love being able to walk up the street to attend industry events. I love it too when the industry comes down the street to IIT to interact with our students and faculty about interesting topics in finance. Almost daily, professional traders and leading academics drop by my office to chat. You won’t find that at any other place but Stuart.

My teaching philosophy
I believe in learning by doing. In my classes, we spend our time discussing technologies and programming techniques and applying them to problems in finance and automated trading. In their projects, my students get the chance to really get their hands dirty with the issues of getting things to work in both a quantitative research and real time trading environments. When new technologies arise, I make sure to incorporate them into my courses so students are well-prepared to hit the ground running when they get a job.

My Teaching/Research Interests
Over the years, my research has evolved toward addressing the new problems that arising in the new age of automated trading. Most of this research involves qualitative and quantitative methods for managing the process of research and development of new market strategies and optimizing the portfolio of automated trading systems. The real problems facing the financial industry are neither a lack of quantitative knowledge nor technological sophistication, but rather a dearth of methods and research that enable and support the successful research, testing, implementation and management of automated trading strategies.