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MFE Culture

 
We are excited that you are considering the UCLA Anderson MFE program as the next step in your journey! Here are some of the best parts of being a student at UCLA Anderson.

UCLA Anderson culture: The vibe here is similar to that of the many companies our students join: collaborative, innovative and impact-oriented. These attributes are reflected in our three pillars:

We Share Success

We believe the best route to success is through collaboration.
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We Think Fearlessly

Here you will be encouraged to push past the expected with your thinking.
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We Drive Change

Our students, faculty and alumni are committed to questioning the status quo and making an impact.
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Real Impressions of MFE Culture

 

Mina's Takes: Culture

Mina Yuan (MFE ’20), Amazon Web Services business operations analyst and vlogger extraordinaire, came to UCLA Anderson from her home town of Toronto to find that Los Angeles was, in her words, “dreamy.” Despite the pandemic, she and her classmates bonded over every California experience.

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UCLA Anderson Financial Engineers Collaborate to Solve Problems

Michelle Katzen (MFE ’10), Advisor at Ritholtz Wealth Management, remembers her experiences with her classmates — the collaboration, the problem-solving, the time hanging out — and how they influece her more than a decade later.

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What is it like to be a UCLA Anderson MFE student?

Meet class of 2021’s Allen Chen and Bardia Farajnejad, as well as 2022's Audrey Zhou as they take you through a day in their life as MFE students.

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A Commitment to Diversity

Diversity isn't a buzzword at UCLA Anderson, it's a way of life. No matter your background, gender, culture, or ideas, we believe diversity leads to a more educated and inclusive community.

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The UCLA Anderson experience

 
During your MFE experience, you will learn from top-ranked finance faculty
Patrick Augustin

Visiting Professor

Patrick Augustin is an Associate Professor of Finance at the Desautels Faculty of Management at McGill University. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Macrofinance and Derivatives and is an Associate Fellow at the Canadian Derivatives Institute. He holds a PhD degree in Finance from the Stockholm School of Economics, and held visiting research positions at the New York University Stern School of Business, the Stockholm School of Economics, the University of Sydney, and the Luxembourg School of Finance. He is certified as Financial Risk Manager by the Global Association of Risk Professionals, and served as a Fellow at the Global Future Councils of the World Economic Forum. Before joining academia, he worked as a structured credit officer at Dexia and as attaché to the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Patrick’s research interests lie at the intersection of macroeconomics and financial markets with a focus on sovereign credit risk, firm fundamentals and credit risk with a focus on credit derivatives, and law and finance with a focus on insider trading. His work has been published in the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Monetary Economics, Management Science, and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, among others. His work has been widely covered in the financial press, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Fortune, and The Globe and Mail.

Mikhail Chernov
Professor of Finance; Warren C. Cordner Chair in Money and Financial Markets
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Alex Dill
Lecturer in Law

Alexander Dill teaches Financial Market Regulation in UCLA’s Anderson School of Management’s Master of Financial Engineering program and Financial Institution Compliance at the UCLA School of Law. He also teaches financial regulation, risk management, and compliance in the University of Chicago’s Financial Mathematics program. He worked in the finance industry since 1986, leaving it in 2015 to begin a career in academia. He spent most of his career at Moody’s Investors Service, where he held a number of positions, which included Head of Global Covenant Research, Senior Credit Officer in Moody’s Structured Finance Group, and Moody’s Global Ratings Compliance Officer for Structured Finance. He helped design and implement a first-of-its-kind ratings compliance system to address conflicts in the credit ratings process in the aftermath of the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals. Prior to Moody’s, he was a Branch Chief in Trading Practices at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. He began his law career in New York, specializing in secured lending, bankruptcy issues, and bank regulatory matters.

He has published numerous articles on financial regulation, compliance, and risk management.  He has been interviewed by Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal and has published an op-ed in the Financial Times. His two books are Anti-Money Laundering Regulation and Compliance: Key Issues and Problem Areas (Edward Elgar: 2021) and Bank Regulation, Risk Management, and Compliance: Theory, Key Issues, and Problem Areas (Routledge: 2019).

Valentin Haddad
Associate Professor of Finance
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Bernard Herskovic
Assistant Professor
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Lars Lochstoer
Associate Professor of Finance
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Francis Longstaff
Allstate Chair in Insurance and Finance
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bob mccann
Robert McCann

Adjunct Professor of Management and Organizations

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Stavros Panageas
Professor of Finance
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Ehud Peleg
Adjunct Associate Professor of Finance
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Eric Reiner
Faculty Director
 
Avanidhar Subrahmanyam
Distinguished Professor of Finance; Goldyne and Irwin Hearsh Chair in Money and Banking
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Ben Tsai
Lecturer

Benjamin Tsai (MBA '01) is the Co-Founder, President & Managing Partner at Wave Financial, an SEC registered investment advisor focused on blockchain and cryptocurrencies with over $1B assets under management. Based in Los Angeles, he serves as the creator and portfolio manager to Wave's Kentucky Whiskey Fund, Select 5 Crypto Fund, BTC Income & Growth Fund, and other strategies for wealth management.

Previously, Ben served as the Head of Alternative Investments Asia Pacific at AllianceBernstein for 3 years. His finance career started at (Bank of America) Merrill Lynch, where he spent 12 years stationed in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore, running derivative products desks for both equity and fixed income, subsequently the commodities desk. He has a BS from UC Berkeley, MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA.

Honors/Awards: TADS Best in Class Asset Backed Token Award for Wave Kentucky Whiskey 2020 Digital Fund

Current and past securities licenses:

  • US FINRA Series 3, 7, 65
  • Hong Kong SFC Type 1, 2, 4, 9
  • JSDA Level I, II, Internal Administrator
  • Singapore MAS Registered Representative
  • Taiwan SITCA Registered Representative
Jinyuan Zhang

Assistant Professor of Finance

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Dan Yavorsky

Lecturer

Dan holds a PhD in quantitative marketing and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. His research interests lie at the intersection of marketing and statistics, and include econometrics, Bayesian modeling, and causal inference, often with the purpose of measuring consumer preferences to inform strategic business decisions. Key work from his dissertation is published in the journal Quantitative Marketing and Economics. 

Dan is a Visiting Professor at the UCSD and UCLA business schools, teaching Customer Analytics and Business Analytics at the undergraduate level and Marketing Strategy and Econometrics at the graduate level.

Dan is also the Senior Vice President of Analytics at GBK Collective. He has over 10 years of analytics and consulting experience ranging from strategic management at Bain & Company to expert witness support in corporate litigation at Cornerstone Research.
And, as part of your UCLA Anderson experience, you will have access to exclusive events, forward-thinking speakers and an alumni network that is 41,000 members strong.

Industry Speakers

Conferences

Conferences, forums and interactive virtual discussions provide opportunities for learning and engaging in conversations around current issues that transcend borders and impact the political economy, society and business.

Alumni Network

A network of over 42,000 of the brightest business leaders in the world

Outside of the classroom

 

UCLA has been ranked as the #1 public university for the  fifth year in a row (U.S. News and World Report, 2021). Being a student at UCLA means you are part of a brilliant intellectual community on a beautiful campus, with access to a plethora of extracurricular activities.

UCLA Athletics

UCLA leads the nation with 118 NCAA team championships and 13 total national championships. Students can purchase discounted tickets at the UCLA Central Ticket Office.

UCLA Recreation

UCLA Recreation is committed to providing high-quality recreational experiences that benefit the campus community. Recreation provides extensive access to a broad range of recreational activities and services at various facilities across campus. Recreation offers programming which encompasses the competitive, passive, social, cultural, and instructional aspects of recreational activity. Visit Member Services for details on how to obtain Recreation access.

Royce Hall Performances

Like Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Royce Hall is one of America’s great concert halls, distinguished, not only for its impeccable beauty and refined acoustics, but also for the ghosts of performances that haunt it.

Westwood

The busy Westwood neighborhood is a walkable historic commercial district with student-friendly restaurants and shops. The Village’s cultural attractions include the innovative Hammer Museum, the acclaimed Geffen Playhouse and Fox Theater, a landmark movie palace that regularly hosts splashy premieres.

Other Attractions

 

We are located in the amazing city of Los Angeles, close to downtown L.A., Silicon Beach (the hub of FinTech) and the famous Santa Monica Pier.

Santa Monica Pier

Revisit days gone by at a mini-amusement park perched over the water. With a roller coaster, a ferris wheel and plenty of kitschy booths, this is old-fashioned fun.

Silicon Beach

Silicon Beach, is the metropolitan area of the city of Los Angeles that extends from LAX airport, and includes the areas of Venice Beach and Santa Monica. The Silicon Beach area hosts over 500 start-ups, including tech giants: Google, Youtube, Amazon, Snapchat, Netflix.

Downtown L.A.

No longer just a business district, this is where some of the world’s best museums, architecture, concert venues and cuisine reside. From a glass sliding board 70 floors above the city to the historic Grand Central Market, a foodie hub, DTLA makes you feel even more alive.