Speakers


  • Brad Bachu
    Uniswap Labs
    Brad is a researcher at Uniswap Labs. He holds a PhD in Physics from Princeton University, with a focus on high energy theoretical physics. His current research, under the supervision of Nima Arkani-Hamed, involves using on-shell techniques to explore the properties of relativistc scattering amplitudes.

  • Bruno Biais
    HEC
    Bruno Biais holds a PHD in finance from HEC, received the Paris Bourse dissertation award and the CNRS bronze medal. He taught at Toulouse, Carnegie Mellon, Oxford, LSE, and now HEC. His research on finance, contract theory and experimental economics is published in Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies and Journal of Financial Economics. He was editor of the Review of Economic Studies and of the Journal of Finance. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society and the Finance Theory group and has been scientific adviser to the NYSE, Euronext, European Central Bank and Bank of England.

  • George Deodatis
    Columbia University
    Professor George Deodatis received his Diploma in Civil Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens in Greece in 1982. He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering from Columbia University (received in 1984 and 1987 respectively). He started his academic career at Princeton University where he served as Assistant Professor and Associate Professor (with tenure). He moved to Columbia University in 2002 where he served as Associate Professor and Professor. He currently holds the Santiago and Robertina Calatrava Family Endowed Chair at the Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at Columbia University. He served as Department Chair from 2013 to 2019 (two terms). His research interests are in the area of probabilistic methods in civil engineering and engineering mechanics, with emphasis on risk analysis and risk management of the civil infrastructure subjected to natural and man-made hazards (including earthquakes, floods, and climate change). He has received the National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability Junior Research Prize, and the American Society of Civil Engineers Walter Huber Research Prize. He is a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE’s highest honor) and a Fellow of the Engineering Mechanics Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers. In 2009, he was elected President of the International Association for Structural Safety and Reliability for a four-year term. In 2017, he was elected President of the Engineering Mechanics Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers for a two-year term. While on the faculty at Princeton University, he was awarded the President's Award for Distinguished Teaching, Princeton's highest teaching honor. At Columbia University, he has received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching and the Great Teacher Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates, Columbia's highest teaching honors.

  • Brett Falk
    University of Pennsylvania
    Dr. Falk is a research professor in the department computer and information sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the director of the Crypto and Society Lab, which focuses on 1) privacy and security in digital environments, 2) facilitating transparency and trust. He has published extensively in the field of cryptography, coding theory and network analysis. Dr. Falk also teaches a highly popular course on Blockchain technology for Penn’s Master’s in Computing and Information Technology program. He received his Sc.B. in mathematics from Brown University, and his Ph.D. in mathematics from UCLA.

  • Ed Felten
    Offchain Labs and Princeton University
    Ed's research interests include computer security and privacy, and public policy issues relating to information technology. Specific topics include software security, Internet security, electronic voting, cybersecurity policy, technology for government transparency, network neutrality and Internet policy. He is the Director of Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP), a cross-disciplinary effort studying digital technologies in public life. CITP has seventeen affiliated faculty members and maintains a diverse research program and a busy events schedule.

  • Hanna Halaburda
    NYU Stern
    Hanna explores how technology is changing economic forces. She focuses on blockchain technologies and platform competition. In both these areas, we see that technology has challenged the underlying foundations of business, and firms must evaluate and change their strategies accordingly. Her findings indicate that conventional wisdom and rules of thumb derived from standard economic analysis may provide insufficient guidance to firms in technology-focused industries.

  • Campbell Harvey
    Duke University
    Campbell R. Harvey is Professor of Finance at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He served as President of the American Finance Association in 2016. Professor Harvey obtained his doctorate at the University of Chicago in business finance. He has served on the faculties of the Stockholm School of Economics, the Helsinki School of Economics, and the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago. He has also been a visiting scholar at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He is a Fellow of the American Finance Association. Over the past eight years, Professor Harvey has taught Innovation and Cryptoventures at Duke University. The course focuses on decentralized finance and web3 technology. He also teaches an elective focused on advanced investment topics: Global Asset Allocation. His book, DeFi and the Future of Finance was published by John Wiley and Sons in the fall of 2021. He also offers four-course DeFi specialization on Coursera that has attracted over 100,000 students.

  • Joel Hasbrouck
    NYU Stern
    Joel's primary area of research is market microstructure (the analysis, design and regulation of trading mechanisms for securities). In addition to teaching at Stern, his present affiliations include: Advisory Editor of the Journal of Financial Markets; Associate Editor of the Journal of Financial Econometrics; Fellow of the Society of Financial Econometrics; Fellow of the Columbia Law School Program in the Law and Economics of Capital Markets. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Chemistry from Haverford College. He has served as a consultant, instructor, and/or advisor board member for numerous public and private institutions, sometimes for compensation (and sometimes pro bono).

  • Michael Lee
    Federal Reserve Bank of New York
    Michael's research interests are broadly in financial intermediation, financial markets, and corporate finance. His recent work explores the intersection of technology and finance. Relevant topics include digital assets, the design and safeguarding of financial and information networks, the economics and regulation of data, and financial market design.

  • Alfred Lehar
    University of Calgary
    Alfred is professor in the finance area. He has been teaching at the Haskayne School of Business since 2005. He received an undergraduate degree and a PhD from the University of Vienna. Prior to Joining Haskayne, Alfred held positions at the University of Vienna and the University of British Columbia. Alfred teaches a introductory finance for the MBAs and a class on Corporate Finance for PhD students. Alfred's areas of research interest include fintech, bank regulation, financial stability, and corporate finance. Alfred is currently researching mining fees and price differentials in Bitcoin markets, decentralized exchanges, and under what conditions renegotiations can facilitate a private sector workout of a financial crisis.

  • Jiasun Li
    George Mason University
    Dr. Li received Ph.D. in finance from UCLA Anderson School of Management and B.S. in mathematics from Fudan University (Shanghai, China) prior to joining George Mason. His current research interest is at the intersection of economics and computer science, including blockchain technologies and FinTech applications. His research papers analyze node incentives in distributed consensus protocols, crypto tokens' roles in jumpstarting platforms, the industrial organization of cryptocurrency mining pools with implications for blockchain (de-)centralization and energy consumption, factor structures in cryptocurrency returns, manipulations on crypto exchanges, crypto derivatives, cross-chain communication and interoperability, incentive issues in blockchain scaling solutions, reliability of blockchain explorers, fundamental demand for cryptocurrencies, Web3 participant profiles, and the security design of investment crowdfunding for both investors and entrepreneurs to harness "wisdom of the crowd".

  • Julian Ma
    Ethereum Foundation
    Julian is a researcher at the Robust Incentives Group of the Ethereum Foundation.

  • Ciamac Moallemi
    Columbia University
    Ciamac is the William von Mueffling Professor of Business in the Decision, Risk, & Operations Division of the Graduate School of Business at Columbia University, and the Director of the Briger Family Digital Finance Lab.

  • Alex Nezlobin
    London School of Economics
    Alex is a Professor of Accounting at the London School of Economics. Prior to LSE, he got his PhD in Business from Stanford University and worked as a professor at the business schools of UC Berkeley and New York University. He holds a CPA license in the State of California but rarely if ever uses it.

  • Brian Nistler
    Uniswap Foundation
    Brian is an in-house counsel focused on digital asset trading platforms.

  • Mallesh Pai
    Associate Professor at Rice University and Researcher at Special Mechanisms Group, Consensys
    Mallesh M Pai is the Lay Family Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at Rice University, and a CEPR Research Fellow. He is also the Director of Undergraduate Studies (learn more about the wonderful majors the Department of Economics offers here). His research interests include mechanism design/ auction theory, and their applications to the design of blockchains and decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. He has also worked on the economics of privacy, social networks/ social learning and statistical decision theory. Prior to joining Rice, Mallesh was a Janice and Julian Bers Assistant Professor of the Social Sciences at the Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania. He has a PhD in Managerial Economics and Strategy from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

  • Troy Paredes
    Paredes Strategies LLC
    Troy A. Paredes is the founder of Paredes Strategies LLC. From 2008-2013, Paredes was a Commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, having been appointed by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Paredes served as an SEC Commissioner during an especially historic time at the SEC and for our economy – namely, throughout the financial crisis and its aftermath, including the implementation of the Dodd-Frank Act. He played a key role in rulemakings and other regulatory matters concerning all aspects of the SEC’s mission and securities regulation, including, among other things, antifraud and anticorruption, public company disclosures, capital formation, corporate governance, executive compensation, investment management, investment advisors, broker-dealers, exchanges, credit rating agencies, equity market structure, fixed income markets, derivatives, auditing and accounting, and cybersecurity.

  • Andreas Park
    University of Toronto
    Andreas is a Professor of Finance at the University of Toronto. He started his career at UofT in 2003 at the Economics Department, and since July 2015, he is with the Department of Management at UTM and the Rotman School of Management. Andreas is also currently serving as the Research Director at the FinHub, the Rotman School's Financial Innovation lab. He spent the 2014-2015 academic year in Wonderful Copenhagen as a Visiting Professor of Finance at Copenhagen Business School. His research is in financial market structure and, more recently, in FinTech. Andreas is working to gain a better understanding how technological innovations such as blockchain technology or high-frequency algorithmic trading affect financial markets. His research is both theoretical and empirical.

  • Tim Roughgarden
    Columbia University and a16z crypto
    Tim Roughgarden is a Professor in the Computer Science Department at Columbia University and the Founding Head of Research at a16z crypto. Prior to joining Columbia, he spent 15 years on the computer science faculty at Stanford, following a PhD at Cornell and a postdoc at UC Berkeley. He works on the boundary of computer science and economics, and on the design, analysis, applications, and limitations of algorithms.

  • Fahad Saleh
    University of Florida
    Fahad is an Associate Professor of Finance at the University of Florida. He is also an Associate Editor at Management Science, a co-organizer of the Crypto and Blockchain Economics Research (CBER) Forum and a fellow of the FinTech Initiative at Cornell University. His research centers upon economic questions associated with blockchain and has been published in leading academic journals such as Management Science, the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Economics.

  • Fabian Schär
    University of Basel
    Fabian Schär is Professor for Distributed Ledger Technology (Blockchain) and Fintech at the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Basel. In addition, he is the Managing Director of the University’s Center for Innovative Finance. He has a PhD in Cryptoassets and Blockchain economics, co-authored the bestselling book “Bitcoin, Blockchain and Cryptoassets”, published by MIT Press and several publications in scientific journals. His research is at the intersection of economics and computer science, with a particular focus on public Blockchains, Cryptoassets and Decentralized Finance protocols.