ICEF Academia has held its Student Research Conference at ICEF
ICEF Academia is a programme of additional training and academic events for ICEF students who would like to go further by doing coursesthat are more in-depth and lead to improved researcher skills. This year, ICEF Academia held its fourth conference, contributed by seven students.
ICEF Academia unfolds through two thematic courses – Advanced Training Programme (ATP) and Advanced Research Programme (ARP). At the conference, which focused mainly on the research part of students’ progress, the presenters had their work evaluated by the board of experts. The best research earned special recognition from the board.
The board had among its membership the faculty and research fellows at ICEF – Oleg Zamkov and Maxim Nikitin, ICEF Deputy Directors; Steven Kivinen, ICEF Academia Academic Supervisor; and Associate Professors Udara Peiris, Emiliano Catonini and Dmitry Makarov. Selected for the conference was a total of seven research papers, prepared by senior bachelor’s and master’s students based upon their studies into finance, microeconomics and macroeconomics.
Coming out on top in the nomination Best Student Research Paper are Alexander Yermilov (4-year BSc student) with his research titled Strategic trading with uncertain level of competition and Inas Nadrus (2-year MSc student) with ETF Liquidity Mismatch.
Alexander Yermilov, 4-year BSc student, one of the two ICEF Academia conference award winners
I am in my final year but this has been my first experience at ICEF Academia Conference. It was exciting to hear the lead researchers – Professors Udara Peiris, Dmitry Makarov and Emiliano Catonini – comment on my work and give advice as to navigating my further research. The topic I pursue is very hands-on in nature and a theme of my graduation thesis that I am working on under the guidance of Professor Alexei Bulatov.
Since I am planning to continue my studies at Oxford, having my research published would be a nice asset to add to my portfolio. I explore the strategic trading from a financial microstructure point of view: I have developed a stylized model that allows you to understand how you can form a price and order size in conditions when you do not know what other players know and how many players are on the market. I find it interesting to be working with theoretical models that can successfully combine mathematics and finance.
I really like the way student-teacher interaction goes at ICEF. The faculty staff are easy to get on with, I know I can always approach them or call when I need their advice. They advise us on where to move on research-wise or where science and industry can be found to converge. This latter point is what I would like to know more about, because it is the industry where I see myself working for after my PhD studies. I’d like to get a front office job in IB.
Steven Kivinen, Assistant Professor at ICEF, ICEF Academia Supervisor
This conference was also a contest to encourage students’ research pursuits. Every project presented to us was very good, which has made it challenging for us to pick one winner. So we ended up choosing two winners, and there is one more research paper – by 4-year undergraduate Alexey Kipriyanov – that received special recognition from the board.
