NYU Tandon Adjunct Professor Gordon Ritter Named Buy-Side Quant of the Year

Author of Celebrated Paper “Machine Learning for Trading” Garners Top Industry Honor

Professor Gordon Ritter, 2019 Buy-Side Quant of the Year according to Risk.net.

Professor Gordon Ritter, 2019 Buy-Side Quant of the Year according to Risk.net.

BROOKLYN, New York, Tuesday, December 11, 2018 – Gordon Ritter, an adjunct professor of Finance and Risk Engineering at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, has been named 2019 Buy-Side Quant of the Year by Risk.net. 

Ritter co-teaches a class at Tandon entitled “Topics in Active Portfolio Management” and a graduate course of his own design in advanced econometric modeling at the NYU Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He has won particular praise for his scholarly paper “Machine Learning for Trading,” which has been called the first conclusive study proving a machine learning-based trading strategy can be successful.

In addition to his work in academia, Ritter is an active portfolio manager: From 2015 to 2018, he was a senior manager with GSA Capital, a global firm that garnered multiple EuroHedge Awards, among the most prestigious honors in the finance industry. Starting in March, he will initiate a new fund called Gordon Ritter and Partners. The fund will use advanced techniques to deliver high Sharpe ratio strategies with no correlation to traditional asset classes.

Ritter, who began his career as a quant shortly after earning his doctoral degree in physics from Harvard in 2007, received his Buy-Side Quant of the Year title during a ceremony in London on November 27. The event brought together a cross-section of the finance world, including buy-side portfolio and risk managers, quants, exchanges, trading platforms, and clearing houses, to recognize their achievements and those of the industry as a whole.

“Tandon’s Department of Finance and Risk Engineering places a strong emphasis on redefining financial engineering, bridging the gap between theory and practice, conducting innovative research, and preparing graduates for increasingly high-tech careers,” Chair Peter Carr explains. “This year Gordon Ritter has contributed greatly to those goals, and our students very much benefit from his real-world expertise and knowledge of important emerging trends in the industry. We are proud of his affiliation with our school and offer hearty congratulations for this well-deserved honor.”

About the New York University Tandon School of Engineering
The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly). A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention and entrepreneurship and dedicated to furthering technology in service to society. In addition to its main location in Brooklyn, NYU Tandon collaborates with other schools within NYU, one of the country’s foremost private research universities, and is closely connected to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. It operates Future Labs focused on start-up businesses in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and an award-winning online graduate program. For more information, visit http://engineering.nyu.edu.