Miao "Ben" Zhang is an assistant professor in Finance and Business Economics at the USC Marshall School of Business. Ben's research covers topics on asset pricing, technology and labor, corporate investment, and government regulation. Ben's research has been published in prestigious publications such as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and NBER Macroeconomics Annual, amongst others. Ben is a special visiting researcher at the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics and an on-site researcher at the United States Census Bureau with a Special Sworn Status. Ben earned a BS in Mathematics with highest honors from Peking University, an MPhil in Finance from the University of Hong Kong, and a PhD in finance from the University of Texas at Austin. Ben received the 2023 USC Marshall Golden Apple Award for Core Teaching voted by students.

Alan Huang is a professor of finance and the Ernst and Young Professor at School of Accounting and Finance. Alan’s recent research combines finance and computer science. His research interests cover textual analysis related to information transmission and pricing in the financial markets and aspects of empirical asset pricing. Alan’s work has been sponsored by a number of federal grants and appeared in leading finance and accounting journals such as Review of Financial Studies and Journal of Accounting Research. Alan leads a financial data analytics research cluster at Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute, and is a former Co-Director of Computing and Financial Management Program at the University of Waterloo. Alan was an investment banking associate and a proprietary trader in China prior to his academic career,, and consults for funds and private equities. Alan holds a PhD from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and a master’s from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

Russ Wermers is the Paul J. Cinquegrana ’63 Endowed Chair in Finance and Director, Center for Financial Policy at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland at College Park, where he won a campus-wide teaching award during 2005 and a Krowe Teaching Award (within the Smith Business School) during 2013. His main research interests include studies of the efficiency of securities markets, as well as the role of institutional investors in setting stock prices. In addition, he studies and teaches quantitative equity strategies, and is currently researching microfinance institutions in Thailand. Most notably, his past research has developed new approaches to measuring and attributing the performance of mutual funds, pension funds, and hedge funds, as well as devising winning strategies for investing in these funds. Professor Wermers also studies the investment behavior of these asset managers, as well as the impact of their trades on stock markets.

Eghbal obtained his undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of Tehran (first-class honours), his master's degree in Industrial Engineering from the Iran University of Science and Technology (distinction) and his PhD degree in Finance from the Alliance Manchester Business School (AMBS), the University of Manchester. He is currently an Assistant Professor in Financial Technology (FinTech) at the Alliance Manchester Business School, working on the theory and application of machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) in Finance. His current project focuses on developing the first comprehensive financial NLP repository, FinText, in collaboration with researchers and industry partners. This repository covers a variety of NLP models (from Word2Vec to GPT) and benchmarks, incorporating different big financial textual datasets. He recently secured a £12,000 grant from Alan Turing Institute (AI-Assisted Real-Time Decision-Making – Turing/Manchester) to accelerate this project.

Martine Nelson is a distinguished trading and product strategy professional. Her extensive track record demonstrates her strategic contributions to product roadmaps and keen ability to refine trading strategies. Martine's analytical approach and deep understanding of market dynamics enable her to drive the development of timely and relevant solutions tailored to evolving client needs. This includes her work leading Dow Jones’ News Analytics suite. Martine’s expertise in market trends, emerging technologies, energy markets and navigating complex financial landscapes has led to consistent successes across diverse markets.