Stony Brook Quant Finance Graduate Program

[Raphael Douady]

I'd like to introduce the Quantitative Finance graduate program (Master and PhD) at the Applied Math and Statistics Dept (AMS) at Stony Brook University (SUNY)
The general graduate program at the AMS requires a very strong level in math and statistics (Stony Brook AMS undergraduate program is, year over year, ranked in the top 5 of the whole of USA). The Quant Finance specialization requires the same strong background in "hard sciences" (math, physics, engineering, CS, etc). Students with only financial or economic background must complete their education with a degree in "hard science" in order to access it.
60 to 90 students follow this program: typically 3 semesters for the Master, and another 3 years for the PhD. These periods can be extended, due to internships.
Stony Brook is a state university. As such, tuition fees are significantly lower than in private universities. The flip side is that PhD grants are, in the most part, granted for a year only. TA lines are available for further years in a very limited number, for students who have both demonstrated excellence in their research and commitment to the community.
As a research environment, PhD (and Master) students benefit from the outstanding research faculty of the university, one of the top scientific centers of the East coast, with close ties to Brookhaven National Laboratory. The financial culture at Stony Brook is heavily influenced by the presence of the mythical Renaissance Technologies hedge fund (founded by Jim Simons). More than a quarter of QF students find jobs in the hedge fund industry - an exceptionally high rate, compared to other program, showing the excellence of students graduating from it (the hedge fund industry is probably the most demanding in terms of math/statistics/CS skills). The rest find jobs in Fin Tech, banks and asset management firms.
All the faculties teaching in QF at Stony Brook have a combination of high level scientific recognition and strong Wall Street experience, incl. exceptional characters such as Andrew Mullhaupt or James Glimm. This follows the will of Robert Frey, the program founder who has spent over 20 years as managing director at Renaissance Technologies and started the program when he left in 2004 to start his own Fund of Hedge Funds FQS. Dr Frey, himself teaching in the program, wanted a program "that forms the kind of students [he] wants to hire". Hence no surprise if students find jobs in the hedge fund industry!
More information on Home | Applied Mathematics & Statistics

Raphael Douady
Frey Chair Professor of Quantitative Finance
Director of the Quant Finance program at Stony Brook University

 

[Ramy Sukarieh]

I have been working in quant finance for over a decade now (on both buy and sell sides) and completed graduate degrees (3 different universities) prior joining Stony Brook's Quant Finance program.
The level of rigor and commitment I have seen from the program/classes and faculty members is great; I am very happy with the educational/research experience am gaining at Stony Brook applied mathematics & statistics department. One class I took 512 "Capital Markets & Portfolio Theory" with Robert Frey, was amazing; lectures notes/homeworks were given in Mathematica, while the book had lots of Matlab codes associated with it; in addition the HWs/lectures given by the professor were very practical, and of course very quantitative/mathematical. Another class 517 "Quantitative Risk Management" used an excellent book and HWs/lectures were great all given in Matlab and practical. I was working in Risk Management when I took this class, notes and HWs were very useful for my job.
As for the research experience, it is truly commendable! Professors/advisers are very accessible, with great technical and practical expertise; the feedback and airtime I get from my adviser has been enriching and super important in moving my research forward; on many occasions I have received replies to my questions in very short period of time, even same day, early mornings, and never been turned down to a meeting or advice regarding studies and research. This is advising and research at BEST.
Best Regards,
Ramy Sukarieh

 

[leadlife]

I am so glad to be a PhD student in Frey Quantitative Finance Program in Stony Brook University. Stony Brook QF Program is now in its rapid course of development within Applied Mathematics & Statistics Department after Professor Raphael Douady took over the director position since 2015.
Recent years, Our new director wins QF program reputation by organizing international conference at NYC and Stony Brook in 2016, arranges weekly seminar lectures by inviting many senior talkers from academic and industry, creatively sets up different QF tracks(buy sides, sell sides, hedge funds and big data) according to students' own interests, organizes QF job search meetup in NYC to advertise our QF students, etc., so students can have a great connection with industry, especially the access to Renaissance Technologies (We are used to attend the seminars in its office near campus at East Setauket, Lond Island, NY).
In addition, the tuition fee (it is a state university) and living expenditure here (long island) is very cost-effective. It only costs you a half of the other QF program but offers you great training in Quantitative Finance, research and industry experienced professors/advisers and good connection to NYC. All of PhD students and some of master students have good job positions in big banks, hedge funds, data science companies, etc.
And please keep in mind that Applied Mathematics & Statistics here is very famous in US and even around the world!!!
Stony Brook QF program is really an underestimated QF program, and it is highly recommended for those students who want to take quant as his or her career in the future!!!

 

[leadlife]

I'd like to introduce the Quantitative Finance graduate program (Master and PhD) at the Applied Math and Statistics Dept (AMS) at Stony Brook University (SUNY)
The general graduate program at the AMS requires a very strong level in math and statistics (Stony Brook AMS undergraduate program is, year over year, ranked in the top 5 of the whole of USA). The Quant Finance specialization requires the same strong background in "hard sciences" (math, physics, engineering, CS, etc). Students with only financial or economic background must complete their education with a degree in "hard science" in order to access it.
60 to 90 students follow this program: typically 3 semesters for the Master, and another 3 years for the PhD. These periods can be extended, due to internships.
Stony Brook is a state university. As such, tuition fees are significantly lower than in private universities. The flip side is that PhD grants are, in the most part, granted for a year only. TA lines are available for further years in a very limited number, for students who have both demonstrated excellence in their research and commitment to the community.
As a research environment, PhD (and Master) students benefit from the outstanding research faculty of the university, one of the top scientific centers of the East coast, with close ties to Brookhaven National Laboratory. The financial culture at Stony Brook is heavily influenced by the presence of the mythical Renaissance Technologies hedge fund (founded by Jim Simons). More than a quarter of QF students find jobs in the hedge fund industry - an exceptionally high rate, compared to other program, showing the excellence of students graduating from it (the hedge fund industry is probably the most demanding in terms of math/statistics/CS skills). The rest find jobs in Fin Tech, banks and asset management firms.
All the faculties teaching in QF at Stony Brook have a combination of high level scientific recognition and strong Wall Street experience, incl. exceptional characters such as Andrew Mullhaupt or James Glimm. This follows the will of Robert Frey, the program founder who has spent over 20 years as managing director at Renaissance Technologies and started the program when he left in 2004 to start his own Fund of Hedge Funds FQS. Dr Frey, himself teaching in the program, wanted a program "that forms the kind of students [he] wants to hire". Hence no surprise if students find jobs in the hedge fund industry!
More information on Home | Applied Mathematics & Statistics

Raphael Douady
Frey Chair Professor of Quantitative Finance
Director of the Quant Finance program at Stony Brook University

It is really an underestimated QF Program!!!

 

[IntoDarkness]

All of PhD students and some of master students have good job positions in big banks, hedge funds, data science companies, etc.

Please provide detailed placement data.

 

[leadlife]

Please provide detailed placement data.

Please check them on Linkedin by yourself if you have time. Thanks!

 

[Raphael Douady]

We're putting together the latest placement statistics. A very quick search on LinkedIn with Stony Brook education and 5 major banks financial and investment services: JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup provides 1277 entries... Not all from the Graduate Quant Finance program, of course, but it shows the importance of this university in Wall Street.
Hope that helps.

 

[IntoDarkness]

Please check them on Linkedin by yourself if you have time. Thanks!

That's not how you market a program. The burden lies on the marketer.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Would love to see more entries of applicants applying to Stony Brook in the Tracker
Tracker | QuantNet Community

Curiously, there isn't many of them, the latest from 2014. If anyone know the recent batch of applicants who are members here, I would strongly ask them to add their profiles to the Tracker. In my experience, that alone would raise the profile of the program a great deal. After all, that's where all the MFE applicants traffic converges during admission season.

 

[leadlife]

That's not how you market a program. The burden lies on the marketer.

We're putting together the latest placement statistics. A very quick search on LinkedIn with Stony Brook education and 5 major banks financial and investment services: JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup provides 1277 entries... Not all from the Graduate Quant Finance program, of course, but it shows the importance of this university in Wall Street.
Hope that helps.

 

[Raphael Douady]

Would love to see more entries of applicants applying to Stony Brook in the Tracker
Tracker | QuantNet Community

Curiously, there isn't many of them, the latest from 2014. If anyone know the recent batch of applicants who are members here, I would strongly ask them to add their profiles to the Tracker. In my experience, that alone would raise the profile of the program a great deal. After all, that's where all the MFE applicants traffic converges during admission season.

Andy, don't we need the program to be listed for this?
Can we simply ask candidates in our program to post their application in the Tracker, or is there something to be done before?
Thanks a lot, Raphael

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Andy, don't we need the program to be listed for this?
Can we simply ask candidates in our program to post their application in the Tracker, or is there something to be done before?
Thanks a lot, Raphael

Stony Brook is already listed on the Tracker but has very few data points. Usually, applicants enter the data themselves but gently asking them to afd their timelines and results here is a great way to jump start.

 

[Eric Werneburg]

Stony Brook's Quantitative Finance program is singular in that it encourages its students to take the road less traveled in the industry. As opposed to drilling the usual stochastic calculus, options pricing theory, and classical asset pricing theory into its students, the program promotes growth in different but equally useful directions. For example, students here apply such areas as information geometry, reinforcement learning, and random matrix theory to study of the market. This is not to say the students are unknowledgeable when it comes to classical financial theory. On the contrary, the students here are taught the subject to such an extent so as to understand the faults and inconsistencies between said theory and the real market. Because of this enlightenment, the department urges us to attend lectures in other departments such as electrical engineering, computer science, and physics. Subsequently, we are often asked to speak about the lecture and discuss how the methods therein may be applied to finance. In addition, many members of the QF faculty have backgrounds in other areas like PDE, dynamical systems, and signal processing. Backgrounds in these areas have proven useful for Stony Brook graduates and faculty alike. The easiest way to see this is to look at the companies to which our students have gone and at which our faculty has been employed. Some notable examples are RenTech, Goldman, and Morgan Stanley.

 

[quant_enthu]

We're putting together the latest placement statistics. A very quick search on LinkedIn with Stony Brook education and 5 major banks financial and investment services: JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup provides 1277 entries... Not all from the Graduate Quant Finance program, of course, but it shows the importance of this university in Wall Street.
Hope that helps.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Prof. Raphael Douady is no longer with the Stony Brook program since Dec 2018 according to his LinkedIn profile. It's a few months after his posts here.

 

[quant_enthu]

Prof. Raphael Douady is no longer with the Stony Brook program since Dec 2018 according to his LinkedIn profile. It's a few months after his posts here.