NYU Tandon’s Department of Finance and Risk Engineering stays strong

NYU Tandon’s master’s program in financial engineering — the second such initiative in the country and the first to be certified by the International Association of Financial Engineers — was launched in 1995 and quickly gained a reputation for attracting renowned financial practitioners as faculty members and for artfully blending theory and practice. 

In 2016, when Peter Carr, an iconic figure on Wall Street, arrived to chair the school’s Department of Finance and Risk Engineering, he modernized the curriculum in order to better prepare graduates for careers that had not even existed a decade before, such as high-speed, algorithmic trading. Thus began a steady rise in the rankings, as graduates proved themselves adept at meeting the growing global demand for machine learning expertise and knowledge of cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and sophisticated modeling and information technology.

Carr’s untimely death in 2022 devastated everyone who knew or worked with him, but with interim chairs Barry Blecherman, David Shimko, and Agnes Tourin at the helm — as well as an exceptionally devoted staff and a cohort of students determined to carry on the Carr legacy — when 2023 rankings were published, the department remained one of the top in the country according to respected and authoritative arbiters.

The program continues to hold the number-two spot in the 2023 TFE Times listing of “Best Master’s of Financial Engineering Programs” and remained in the top 10 in QuantNet's “Best Financial Engineering Programs,” at number nine. 

“Our latest rankings are a testament to the high caliber of faculty Peter attracted, the talent of the students drawn to study under him, and the curricular innovations he spearheaded,” said current Interim Chair Agnes Tourin. “We are proud to continue upholding his vision and educating a new generation of financial professionals with the highest levels of integrity, acumen, and responsibility.”