Irena Vodenska

Professor of Finance Director, Finance Programs Chair, Administrative Sciences

Irena Vodenska is professor of finance and director of finance programs at Boston University’s Metropolitan College. Her research focuses on network theory and complexity science in macroeconomics. She conducts theoretical and applied interdisciplinary research using quantitative approaches for modeling interdependences of financial networks, banking system dynamics, and global financial crises. More specifically, Dr. Vodenska’s research focuses on the modeling of early warning indicators and systemic risk propagation throughout interconnected financial and economic networks. She also studies the effects of news announcements on financial markets, corporations, financial institutions, and related global economic systems. She uses neural networks and deep learning methodologies for natural language processing to text mine important factors affecting corporate performance and global economic trends. Professor Vodenska teaches Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management, International Finance and Trade, Financial Regulation and Ethics, and Derivatives Securities and Markets at Boston University. She holds a PhD in econophysics (statistical finance) and an MA in economics from Boston University, an MBA from Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University, and a BS in computer information systems from the University of Belgrade. She is also a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charter holder. As a principal investigator (PI) for Boston University, she has won interdisciplinary research grants awarded by the European Commission (EU), the Network Science Division of the US Army Research Office, and the National Science Foundation (US).

View Dr. Vodenska’s Curriculum Vitae 2021-05.

Research Interests

Interdependent Network Theory and Systemic Risk Modeling
- Using a bipartite network approach to simulate toxic asset impact on financial crisis propagation across the US, European, and Japanese bank networks
- Modeling complex financial and economic systems such as bank liquidity networks and interdependent financial market networks
- Investigating interdependencies in global financial networks using complex principal component analysis and community detection algorithms to study stock and foreign exchange financial markets
- Studying the European Sovereign debt crisis and modeling the relationships within the European bank–government debt coupled network
Big Data Analytics, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Complex Economic Systems
- Using big data, including intraday pricing and news streaming, to forecast global financial market returns
- Investigating the relations between news sentiments and risk and return time series for global equities, foreign exchange, and international stock market indices
- Studying extensive archives of international news to understand the relationship between news sentiments and macroeconomic indicators
- Investigating natural language processing approaches, including deep learning and neural network methods, to classifying algorithms for financial and economic news topic recognition
- Studying the challenges and opportunities of ethically responsible machine learning in FinTech, and understanding the possibilities to alleviate human biases by introducing computer-based decision-making systems in customer-centered portfolio management
Blockchain Opportunities and Challenges, and Cryptocurrency Price Forecasting
- Studying the network of bitcoin transactions and price dynamics (volatility) of cryptocurrencies
- Investigating financial micro-blog impulses effect on bitcoin prices and analyzing the relationship of bitcoin prices with prices of other financial assets
- Modeling the interdependent network dynamics of the most liquid cryptocurrency prices and using machine learning methodologies to study and quantify the news related to these cryptocurrencies

Courses

Scholarly Works

Publications

Peer-reviewed journal articles

Barlow, J., Vodenska, I. “Socio-Economic Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic in the U.S.” Entropy 23, no. 6 (2021): 673. https://doi.org/10.3390/e23060673

Vodenska, I., N. Dehmamy, A. P. Becker, S. Buldyrev, and S. Havlin. “Systemic Stress Test Model for Shared Portfolio Networks.” Nature’s Scientific Reports 11, no. 1 (2021): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82904-y

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Becker, A. P., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., and Lungu, E. “Network approach to understanding the fragility of financial systems.” Journal of Financial Stability 52, article 100803 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfs.2020.100803

Smolyak, A., Levy, O., Vodenska, I., Buldyrev, S., and Havlin, S. “Mitigation of cascading failures in complex networks.” Nature’s Scientific Reports 10, no. 1 (2020): 1–12.

Souma, W., Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. “New Measures of Journal Impact Based on the Number of Citations and PageRank.” Journal of Digital Information Management 18, no. 1 (2020): 11.

Iyetomi, H., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Souma, W., Vodenska, I., and Yoshikawa, H. “Relationship between Macroeconomic indicators and economic cycles in the U.S.” Nature’s Scientific Reports 10, no. 1 (2020).

Mishev, K., Gjorgjevikj, A., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L. T., and Trajanov, D. “Evaluation of Sentiment Analysis in Finance: From Lexicons to Transformers.” IEEE Access vol. 8 (2020): 131662–131682 .

Souma, W., Vodenska, I. and Aoyama, H. “Enhanced news sentiment analysis using deep learning methods.” Journal of Computational Social Science (2019): 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42001-019-00035-x

Nishijima, M., Sarti, F. M., Vodenska, I., and Zhang, G. “Effects of decentralization of primary healthcare on diabetes mellitus in Brazil.” Public Health vol. 166 (2019): 108–120. doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2018.10.005

Kremer, M., Becker, P., Vodenska, I., Stanley, E., and Schäfer, R. “Economic and political effects on currency clustering dynamics.” Quantitative Finance 19, no. 5 (2018): 705–716. doi.org/10.1080/14697688.2018.1532101

Bertella M. A., Pires F. R., Rego H. H. A., Silva J. N., Vodenska I., and Stanley H. E. “Confidence and self-attribution bias in an artificial stock market.” PLoS ONE 12, no. 2 (2017): e0172258. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0172258

Y. Sakamoto and I. Vodenska. “Systemic risk propagation in bank-asset network: New perspective of the Japanese banking crisis of the 1990s.” Journal of Complex Networks 5, no. 2 (Oxford University Press 2017): 315–333. doi: 10.1093/comnet/cnw018

I. Vodenska, H. Aoyama, Y. Fujiwara, H. Iyetomi, and Y. Arai. “Interdependencies and causalities in complex financial networks.” PLoS ONE 11, no. 3 (2016): e0150994. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0150994

A. Majdandzic, L. Braunstein, I. Vodenska, S. Levy, S. Havlin, and H. E. Stanley. “Multiple tipping points and optimal repairing in interacting networks.” Nature Communications 7, article 10850 (2016). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10850 | https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms10850

Y. Sakamoto and I Vodenska. “Impact of bankruptcy through asset portfolios.” The European Physical Journal Special Topics 225, nos. 6–7 (2016): 1311–1316.

I. Vodenska, D. Zhou, A. Becker, D. Kenett, S. Havlin, and H. E. Stanley. “Community analysis of global financial markets.” Risks 4, no. 2 (2016): 13.

“Ubiquitous Technology-Enhanced Teaching of Complex Financial Concepts.” International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research 14, no. 2 (2015).

C. Curme, H. E. Stanley, and I. Vodenska. “Coupled network approach to predict ability of financial market returns and news sentiments.” International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance 18, no. 7 (2015).

D. Y. Kenett, X. Huang, I. Vodenska, S. Havlin, H. E. Stanley. “Partial correlation analysis: Applications for financial markets.” Journal of Quantitative Finance 15, no. 4 (2015).

M. Piskorec, N. Antulov-Fantulin, P. K. Novak, I. Mozetic, M. Grcar, I. Vodenska, and T. Smuc. “Cohesiveness in Financial News and its Relation to Stock Market Volatility.” Nature Scientific Reports 4, article 5038 (2014). DOI:10.1038/srep05038

L. Chitkushev, I. Vodenska, and T. Zlateva. “Digital Learning Impact Factors: Student Satisfaction and Performance in Online Courses.” International Journal of Information & Education Technology 4, no. 4 (2014).

X. Huang, I. Vodenska, S. Havlin, and H. E. Stanley. “Cascading Failures in Bi-partite Graphs: Model for Systemic Risk Propagation.” Nature Scientific Reports 3, article 1219 (2013). DOI:10.1038/srep01219

I. Vodenska and L. Chitkushev. “Impact of Euro Adoption on Emerging European Countries.” Management Journal 8, no. 1 (2013): 47–67.

X. Huang, I. Vodenska, F. Z. Wang, S. Havlin, and H. E. Stanley. “Identifying influential directors in the United States corporate governance network.” Physical Review E 84, no. 4 (2011): 046101.

I. Vodenska, F. Z. Wang, P. Weber, K. Yamasaki, S. Havlin, and H. E. Stanley. “Comparison between volatility return intervals of the S&P 500 index and two common models.” The European Physical Journal B vol. 61 (2008): 217–223.

P. Weber, F. Wang, I. Vodenska-Chitkushev, S. Havlin, and H. E. Stanley. “Relation between volatility correlation in financial markets and Omori processes occurring on all scales.” Physical Review E 76, no. 1 (2007): 016109.

Books and Book Chapters

Vodenska, I., and Becker, A. P. “Interdependence, vulnerability, and contagion in financial and economic networks.” In New Perspectives and Challenges in Econophysics and Sociophysics, edited by F. Abergel, B. K. Chakrabarti, A. Chakraborti, N. Deo, and K. Sharma (Springer, May 15, 2019): 101–116.

Abergel, F., Aoyama, H., Chakrabarti, B. K., Chakraborti, A., Deo, N., Raina, D., and Vodenska, I. (editors). Econophysics and Sociophysics: Recent Progress and Future Directions (Springer International Publishing, 2017).

D. Y. Kenett, J. Gao, X. Huang, S. Shao, I. Vodenska, S. V. Buldyrev, G. Paul, H. E. Stanley, and S. Havlin. “Network of Interdependent Networks: Overview of Theory and Applications.” In Networks of Networks: The Last Frontier of Complexity, edited by G. D’Agostino and A. Scala (Springer, Berlin, 2014): 3–36.

Working Papers

Dehmami, N., S. Buldyrev, S. Havlin, H. E. Stanley, and I. Vodenska. “Financial network stability indicators” (to be submitted to Frontiers in Physics).

Stosic, D., D. Stosic, I. Vodenska, H. S. Stanley, and T. Stosic. “A new look at calendar anomalies: multifractality and day of the week effect” (working paper).

Mishev, I. Vodenska, L. Chitkushev, and D. Trajanov. “Forecasting corporate revenues by using natural language processing and deep learning neural network approaches” (working paper).

Davchev, J., K. Mishev, I. Vodenska, L. Chitkushev, and D. Trajanov. “News network connectivity effects on cryptocurrency volatility dynamics” (working paper).

Vodenska, I., and W. Zhou. “Understanding the effect of the financial crisis and the affordable care act on insurance claim costs” (working paper).

Becker, A. P., I. Vodenska, and X. Zhang. “Bank-firm lending relationships and covenant-based decision making” (working paper).

Becker, A. P., D. Garlaschelli, and I. Vodenska. “Reconstruction of financial networks and systemic risk modeling” (working paper).

Vodenska, I., and M. Zarkovic. “Growth determinants of the old and the new E.U. countries” (working paper).

Vodenska, I., and V. Delevski. “Optimal Government Size for Sustainable Growth” (working paper).

Refereed Conference Proceedings

Davchev, J., Mishev, K., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Trajanov, D. “Bitcoin Price Prediction using Transfer Learning on Financial Micro-blogs.” In Proceedings of the 16th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science (September 5, 2020).

Mishev, K., Gjorgjevik, A., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., Souma, W., and Trajanov, D. “Forecasting Corporate Revenue by Using Deep-Learning Methodologies.” In Proceedings of the International Conference on Control, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics & Optimization (ICCAIRO) vol. 1 (2019): 115–120. DOI Bookmark: 10.1109/ICCAIRO47923.2019.00026

Mishev, K., Gjorgjevikj, A., Stojanov, R., Mishkovski, R., Irena Vodenska, Lubomir Chitkushev, and Dimitar Trajanov. “Performance Evaluation of Word and Sentence Embedding for Finance Headlines Sentiment Analysis.” In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference, ICT Innovations. Ohrid, North Macedonia (October 17–19, 2019).

Dodevska, L., Petreski, V., Mishev, K., Gjorgjevikj, A., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev. L., and Trajanov, D. “Predicting companies’ stock price direction by using sentiment analysis of news articles.” In the 15th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science. Fulda and Bamberg, Germany (June 28–July 1, 2019).

Tolic, D., Antulov-Fantulin, N., Piskorec, M., Ce, Z., and Vodenska, I. “Inferring short-term volatility indicators from the Bitcoin blockchain.” In Springer Proceedings from the 7th International Conference on Complex Systems and Their Applications. Cambridge, United Kingdom (December 11–13, 2018).

Gjorgjevikj, A., Mishev, K., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Trajanov, D. “Foreign direct investment net inflows: data-driven analysis.” In the 14th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science. Boston, Mass. (June 29–July 2, 2018).

Wallschlaeger, M., Becker, A., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., and Schaefer, R. “Economic and political effects on currency clustering.” In World Finance and Banking Symposium. Bangkok, Thailand (December 14–15, 2017).

Trajanov, D., Vodenska, I., Cvetanov, G, and Chitkushev, L. “Data driven analysis of trade, FDI and international relations on a global scale.” In the 13th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science. Albena, Bulgaria (June 30–July 3, 2017).

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, I., and Arai, Y. “Interdependencies and Causalities in Coupled Financial Networks.” In the 29th Australasian Finance and Banking Conference (AFBC). Sydney, Australia (December 14–16, 2016).

Dehmamy, N., Byldirev, S., Havlin, S., Stanley, H. E., and Vodenska, I. “A systemic stress test model in bank-asset networks.” In World Finance and Banking Symposium. Dubai, UAE (December 14–15, 2016).

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, I., and Arai, Y. “Interdependencies and Causalities in Coupled Financial Networks.” In the 2016 Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Meeting. Las Vegas, Nev. (October 19–22, 2016).

Vodenska, I., Trajanov, D., Trajanovska, I., and Chitkushev, L. “Impact of Global Events on Crude Oil Prices.” In the 12th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science. Nurnberg, Germany (July 1–4, 2016).

Trajanov, D., Trajanovska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Vodenska, I. “Using Google Big Query for Data Analytics in Research and Education.” In the 12th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science. Nurnberg, Germany (July 1–4, 2016).

Curme, C., Stanley, H. E. and Vodenska, I. “Coupled Network Approach to Predictability of Financial Market Returns and News Sentiments.” In the World Finance and Banking Symposium. Hanoi, Vietnam (December 17–18, 2015).

Vodenska, I., and Runchev, N. “Real effective exchange rate and transitional economy of the Republic of Macedonia.” In the World Finance and Banking Symposium. Singapore (December 12–13, 2014).

Zhou, D., Vodenska, I., Kenett, D. Y., Stanley, H. E., Havlin, S. “Systemic importance of global financial markets and distress propagation.” In the 2014 Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Meeting. Nashville, Tenn. (October 15–18, 2014).

Vodenska, I., Joseph, A., Stanley, H. E., Chen, G. “Novel forecasting techniques using big data, network science and economics.” In proceeding series Communications in Computer and Information Science vol. 438, edited by V. Mladenov and P. Ch. Ivanov (Springer, 2014), part of the 22nd International Conference on Nonlinear Dynamics of Electronic Systems (NDES), Albena, Bulgaria (July 4–6, 2014).

Zhou, D., Vodenska, I., Kenett, D. Y., Stanley, H. E., Havlin, S. “Systemic Importance of Global Financial Markets and Distress Propagation.” In the World Finance Conference. Ca’Foscari University, Venice, Italy (July 2–4, 2014).

Chitkushev, L., Vodenska, I., and Zlateva, T. “Digital Learning Impact Factors: Student Satisfaction and Performance in Online Courses.” In Proceedings of the ICIET 2014: 2nd International Conference on Information and Education Technology. Melbourne, Australia (January 2–3, 2014).

Vodenska, I., and Chambers, W. “Relation between VIX option-based implied volatility index and S&P 500 index volatility.” In the Proceedings of the 26th Australasian Finance and Banking Conference (AFBC). Sydney, Australia (December 16–19, 2013).

Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. “Innovative tools for teaching complex financial concepts.” In the 9th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education. Fulda/Wurzburg, Germany (June 29–July 2, 2013).

Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. “Emerging European Countries and the Euro Adoption Policies.” In Euro-Conference 2012. Portoroz, Slovenia (July 12–14, 2012).

Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. “Ubiquitous Technology-Enhanced Teaching of Complex Financial Concepts.” In the 4th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (SCEDU) 2012. Porto, Portugal (April 16–18, 2012).

Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Zlateva, T. “Integrating Informatics Into Graduate Finance Programs.” In the 7th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education. Sofia, Bulgaria (July 6–10, 2011).

“Innovative Web-Based Tools for Finance Education.” In the 6th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education. Fulda/Munich, Germany (June 26–29, 2010).

Conference Presentations

Liu, C., Zhou, S., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., Zhang, G., Gheitanchi, S., and Rawassizadeh, R. “Blockchain Technology in Healthcare: A Scientific and Technological Driving Force.” 34th IEEE Computer-Based Medical Systems (CBMS) Conference, June 7–9, 2021.

“Transfer Learning Methodology for Bitcoin Price Prediction.” Blockchain Conference (BCK21), Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, February 17–18, 2021.

Julio, I., Becker, A. P., Vodenska, I., and Wang, Liyuan. “Corporate leverage ratio adjustment under cash flow-based debt covenants.” Poster, American Economic Association (AEA), Allied Social Science Association (ASSA) Conference, January 3–5, 2021 (Virtual Conference).

Aras, P., Zhang, G., Lucas, M., Rawassizadeh, R., Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. “Quality assessment of inpatient medical claim data.” Poster, IEEE BIBM Online, December 16–19, 2020 (Virtual Conference).

Barlow, J., and Vodenska, I. “Socio-economic impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic.” 33rd Australasian Finance and Banking Conference, Sydney, Australia, December 15–17, 2020.

Davchev, J., Mishev, K., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Trajanov, D. “Impact of Cryptocurrency tweet sentiments on crypto prices.” Conference on Complex Systems (CCS2020), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece, December 7–12, 2020.

Barlow, J., and Vodenska, I. “Modeling economic cascades due to a pandemic shock.” Conference on Complex Systems (CCS2020), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece, December 7–12, 2020.

Zarkovic, M., Vodenska, I., Tomic, A., and Chitkushev, L. “Socio-economic determinants of growth in the European Union.” World Finance and Banking Symposium, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia, December 5–6, 2020.

Becker, A., Garlaschelli, D., and Vodenska, I. “Systemic Risk Underestimation in Reconstructed Networks.” 16th International Network Science Conference (NetSci’20), Rome, Italy, September 17–25, 2020.

Davchev, J., Mishev, K., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Trajanov, D. “Financial Micro-blog network impact on cryptocurrency returns.” 16th International Network Science Conference (NetSci’20), Rome, Italy (September 17–25, 2020).

Barlow, J., and I. Vodenska. “Cascading failure in economic networks: The case of COVID-19.” 16th International Network Science Conference (NetSci’20), Rome, Italy, September 17–25, 2020.

Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Becker, A., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Bank systemic importance and fragility of financial networks.” World Finance Conference (WFC), University of Malta, Malta, September 4–6, 2020.

Prachiti, A., Zhang, G., Rawassizadeh, R., Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. “Data Quality Assessment of Medical Insurance Claims.” The 16th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science, September 5, 2020 (Virtual Conference).

Davchev, J., Mishev, K., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Trajanov, D. “Forecasting Bitcoin Prices based on Financial Tweets.” The 16th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science, September 5, 2020 (Virtual Conference).

Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Becker, A., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Dynamic model for measuring the stability of financial systems.” 29th European Financial Management Association (EFMA) conference, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, June 24–27, 2020.

Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Becker, A., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Systemic Stress Test Model for Networks of Financial Institutions.” 11th International Conference on Complex Networks (CompleNet ’20), University of Exeter, United Kingdom, March 31–April 3, 2020.

Davchev, J., Vodenska, I., Mishev, K., Chitkushev, L., and Trajanov, D. “Transfer learning methodology for Bitcoin price prediction based on financial micro-blogs.” International Conference on Blockchain Applications, Blockchain in Kyoto 2020, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, February 27–28, 2020.

Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Becker, A., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Vulnerability of Interconnected Financial Networks.” International Conference on Network Science, NetSci-x 2020, Tokyo, Japan, January 20–23, 2020.

Souma, W., Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. “New Measure of Journal Impact based on the Number of Citations and PageRank.” First International Conference on Science and Technology Metrics, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand, December 2–4, 2019.

Souma, W., Vodenska, I., and Aoyama, H. “News sentiment analysis in the U.S. and Japan using deep learning methods.” Conference on Complex Systems (CCS’19), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, September 30–October 4, 2019.

Vodenska, I., Mishev, K., Trajanov, D., and Chitkushev, L. “Forecasting financial and economic dynamics using artificial neural network and deep learning methodologies.” Conference on Complex Systems (CCS’19), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, September 30–October 4, 2019.

Souma, W., Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. “New measures of journal impact based on citation network.” 17th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy, September 2–5, 2019.

“Current trends and the future of fintech: Robo-advising fiduciary based on deep learning.” The 7th Big Data in Economics, Science, and Technology (BEST) conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 5–7, 2019.

Kremer, M., Becker, A., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., and Schaefer, R. “Currency stability and political and economic uncertainties.” World Finance Conference (WFC), Santiago, Chile, July 24–26, 2019.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Becker, A. P., Fujiwara, Y., and Iyetomi, H. “Network approach to understanding vulnerabilities of financial systems.” International School and Conference on Network Science, (NetSci-X 2019), Santiago, Chile, January 3–5, 2019.

Souma, W., and Vodenska, I. “Enhanced news sentiment analysis using deep learning methods.” PRIMA 2018: The 21st International Conference on Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems, Tokyo, Japan, October 29–November 2, 2018.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., and Becker, A. P. “Macroprudential stress testing of global financial systems.” Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Meeting, San Diego, Calif., October 10–13, 2018.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., and Becker, A. P. “Complex network approach to understanding and improving financial system stability.” 14th Econophysics Colloquium, Palermo, Sicily, Italy, September 12–14, 2018.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Becker, A. P., Fujiwara, Y., and Iyetomi, H. “Understanding the fragility of financial systems.” World Finance Conference (WFC), Mauritius, Africa, July 25–27, 2018.

Vodenska, I., and Cai, W. “Impact of Federal Reserve announcements on major financial market sectors.” The 6th Big Data in Economics, Science, and Technology (BEST) conference, Kallithea, Macedonia, Greece, July 12–14, 2018.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Becker, A. P., Fujiwara, Y., and Iyetomi, H. “Network approach to understanding the fragility of financial systems.” Net-O-Nets Satellite, 14th International Network Science Conference (NetSci’18), Paris, France, June 11–15, 2018.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Becker, A. P., Fujiwara, Y., and Iyetomi, H. “Systemic risk and vulnerabilities in bank networks.” Financial Management Association (FMA) European Conference, Kristiansand, Norway, June 13–15, 2018.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Becker, A. P., Fujiwara, Y., and Iyetomi, H. “Systemic risk propagation and distress in bank networks.” Financial Management Association (FMA) Asia/Pacific Conference, Hong Kong, HK, May 16–18, 2018.

Sakamoto, Y., and Vodenska, I. “Network approach to determining vulnerabilities of financial institutions.” Poster presentation, CompleNet’18, Boston, Mass., March 4–8, 2018.

Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. “Global investment networks and financial crises.” Poster presentation, Econophysics-2017 & APEC-2017, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Delhi University, New Delhi, India, November 15–18, 2017.

Becker, A., Wollschläger, M., Vodenska, I., and Schaefer, R. “Systemic risk and vulnerabilities of bank networks.” Second Conference on Network Models and Stress Testing for Financial Stability, Banco de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico, September 26–27, 2017.

Becker, A., Wollschläger, M., Vodenska, I., and Stanley, H. E. “Macroprudential policymaking effects on currency clustering.” Conference on Complex Systems (CCS’17), Cancun, Mexico, September 17–22, 2017.

Nishijima, M., Sarti, F. M., Vodenska, I., and Zhang, G. “Evaluating the primary healthcare decentralization on diabetes indicators: The case of Brazilian HiperDia program for diabetes.” 2017 Congress of the International Health Economics Association: Revolutions in the Economics of Health Systems, Boston, Mass., July 7–11, 2017.

“Modeling systemic risk and behavioral response in financial networks.” 5th International Conference on Big Data in Economics, Science and Technology, Phuket, Thailand, July 19–21, 2017.

“Using big data simulation as an early warning signal for global financial crises.” Computer Science and Education in Computer Science (CSECS) 2017, Albena, Bulgaria, June 30–July 3, 2017.

Sakamoto, Y., and Vodenska, I. “Network approach to determining vulnerabilities of financial institutions.” Poster presentation, 13th International Network Science Conference (NetSci’17), Indianapolis, Ind., June 19–23, 2017.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., and Lungu, E. “A network approach for macroprudential monitoring of systemic risk and bank stability.” International School and Conference on Network Science, 2nd Workshop on Statistical Physics for Financial and Economic Networks, Indianapolis, Ind., June 19, 2017.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., and Lungu, E. “Challenges in macroprudential regulation for bank network stability.” The 22nd annual Workshop on the Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents (WEHIA), Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy, June 12–14, 2017.

Wollschlager, M., Becker, A., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., and Schaefer, R. “Economic and political effects on currency clustering dynamics.” Seventh Annual Applied Finance Conference of the Financial Management Association, New York, N.Y., May 12, 2017.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., and Lungu, E. “Sovereign Debt Network.” The 21st meeting of the Japanese Association for Evolutionary Economics, Tokyo, Japan, March 26, 2017.

Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Systemic risk propagation in bank networks.” Complex Network Conference—CompleNet’17, Dubrovnik, Croatia, March 21–24, 2017.

Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Model for systemic risk propagation in shared portfolio networks.” 3nd International School and Conference on Network Science (NetSci-x), Tel Aviv, Israel, January 15–18, 2017.

Sakamoto, Y., and Vodenska, I. “Network approach to understanding the 1990s Japanese Financial Crisis.” Conference on Complex Systems (CCS’16), Amsterdam, Netherlands, September 19–22, 2016.

Sakamoto, Y., and Vodenska, I. “Cascading Failure Model and New Perspective on the 1990s Japanese Banking Crisis.” Asia- Pacific Econophysics Conference, University of Tokyo, Japan, August 24–26, 2016.

Wollschlager, M., Becker, A., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., and Schaefer, R. “Economic and Political influences in foreign exchange markets.” 3rd Big Data in Economics, Science, and Technology Conference, Bali, Indonesia, July 20–22, 2016.

Wollschlager, M., Becker, A., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., and Schaefer, R. “Currency classification and structural changes in foreign exchange markets.” 12th International Network Science Conference (NetSci’16), Seoul, South Korea, May 30–June 3, 2016.

Vodenska, I., Curme, C., and Stanley, H. E. “Network-logistic regression approach to understanding the relationships between financial markets and social media–news sentiments.” 20th International Conference on Socio-economic systems with ICT and Networks, University of Tokyo, Japan, March 26–27, 2016.

Vodenska, I., H. Aoyama, Y. Fujiwara, H. Iyetomi, and Y. Arai. “Interdependencies and causalities in complex financial networks.” Poster presentation, 2nd International School and Conference on Network Science (NetSci-x), Wroclaw, Poland, January 11–13, 2016.

Mullokandov, A., Dehmamy, N., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., Mozetic, I., and Kralj-Novak, P. “Empirically validated model of stock return dynamics.” Conference on Complex Systems (CCS’15), Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz., September 28–October 2, 2015.

Curme, C., Stanley, H. E., and Vodenska, I. “Coupled network approach to predictability of financial market returns and news sentiments.” Conference on Complex Systems (CCS’15), Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz., September 28–October 2, 2015.

Vodenska, I., Becker, A., Zhou, D., Kenett, D., Stanley, H. E., and Havlin, S. “Community analysis of global financial markets.” Conference on Complex Systems (CCS’15), Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz., September 28–October 2, 2015.

Sakamoto, Y., and Vodenska, I. “Dynamics of communities in multiplex synchronization networks.” 11th Econophysics Colloquium (EC2015), Institute for Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, September 14–16, 2015.

Vodenska, I., Curme, C., and Stanley, H.E. “Bipartite network approach to understanding important predictors in news–markets coupled network,.” 2nd Big Data in Economics, Science, and Technology Conference, Ohrid, Macedonia, July 20–22, 2015.

Vodenska, I., Curme, C., Stanley, H. E. “Can financial news sentiments predict stock market performance?” 11th International Network Science Conference, Zaragoza, Spain, June 1–5, 2015.

Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Systemic stress test in shared portfolio network.” International School and Conference on Network Science, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, January 14–16, 2015.

Aoyama, H., Vodenska, I., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., and Arai, Y. “Synchronization network of global foreign exchange and equity markets.” Third International Workshop on Complex Networks and their Applications, Marrakech, Morocco, November 23–27, 2014.

Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Mullokandov, A., Novak, P. K., and Mozetic, I. “Understanding the relationship between news analytics and financial time series.” European Conference on Complex Systems (ECCS’14), Institute for Advanced Studies (IMT), Lucca, Italy, September 22–26, 2014.

“Lead-lag relationships in synchronization financial networks: Crisis vs. non-crisis period dynamics.” International Workshop on Big Data and Macroeconomics, Grand Weilea, Maui, Hawaii, August 22–24, 2014.

Chitkushev, L., Zlateva, T., Vodenska, I., and Zlatev, V. “Analytics Dashboard Parameters for Digital Learning Management Systems.” 10th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science (CSECS 2014), Albena, Bulgaria, July 4–7, 2014.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., and Arai, Y. “Interconnectivity between equity and foreign exchange markets.” 10th International School and Conference on Network Science, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., June 2–6, 2014.

Dehmamy, N., Vodenska, I., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “A Dynamical Model of Systemic Risk in Bank-Asset Networks.” Poster presentation, 10th International School and Conference on Network Science, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., June 2–6, 2014.

Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Mullokandov, A., Novak, P. K., and Mozetic, I. “Financial news sentiment structure and entity clustering.” 10th International School and Conference on Network Science, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., June 2–6, 2014.

Joseph, A., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., and Chen, G. “MLR Fit-Network of Global Balance of Payments.” Poster presentation, 10th International School and Conference on Network Science, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., June 2–6, 2014.

Kenett, D. Y., Huang, X., Vodenska, I., Havlin, S., Stanley, H. E. “Partial Correlation Analysis of the Stock Market.” Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Eastern Economic Association, Boston, Mass., March 6–9, 2014.

Vodenska, I., Dehmami, N., Battiston, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Systemic Risk Propagation from Troubled European Economies to Global Banks and Investment Funds.” Workshop on Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents (WEHIA), Reykjavik, Iceland, June 18–22, 2013.

Piškorec, M., Antulov-Fantulin, N., Šmuc, T., Mozetič, I., Novak, P.K., Grčar, M., and Vodenska, I. “Quantifying the Impact of Cohesiveness in Financial News.” 10th European Conference on Complex Systems (ECCS’13), Barcelona, Spain, September 16–20, 2013.

Vodenska, I., Dehmami, N., Battiston, S., Havlin, S. and Stanley, H. E. “Model of Financial Network Dynamics under Systemic Risk.” 10th European Conference on Complex Systems (ECCS’13), Barcelona, Spain, September 16–20, 2013.

Vodenska, I., Zhou, D., Kenett, D., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Distress Propagation in Coupled Foreign Exchange and Stock Market Networks.” 25th International Conference on Statistical Physics (StatPhys25), Seoul, South Korea, July 22–26, 2013.

Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. “Web Portal for Financial Informatics Research and Education.” 8th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education, Boston, Mass., July 5–9, 2012.

Vodenska, I., Zhou, D., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Model for Systemic Risk Propagation in Financial Networks.” Latsis Symposium 2012, Economics on the Move, Trends and Challenges from the Natural Sciences, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, September 11–14, 2012.

“Using Interactive Synchronous Tablet Tools in Online Finance Courses.” Third Instructional Innovation Conference, Boston University, March 2011.

Chitkushev, L., Zlatev, V., and Vodenska, I. “Advantages of Blended Format for International Programs.” Second Annual FABDE Conference on Distance Education, Boston, Mass., May 11, 2010.

Huang, X., Vodenska, I., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “A New Approach for Determining the Influence of Directors in US Corporate Governance Network.” International Conference on Complex Network Science, Cambridge, Mass., May 10–14, 2010.

“Using Stock-Trak^® for Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management: An Academic Tool for Real Life Risk Assessment.” First Instructional Innovation Conference, Boston University, March 2009.

Invited Talks

“A Bird’s-Eye View into the Origin of Systemic Risk: Financial Institutions, Sovereign Debt, and Public Health and Policy.” Northwestern University, Institute on Complex Systems, January 27, 2021.

“Can artificial intelligence improve financial and economic forecasting?” International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Complex Socio-Economic Systems and Public Policy, Jindal Global University, India, January 20–22, 2021.

“From Tulips to Raging Bulls: Financial Crises are Viral.” School and Conference on Network Science (NetSci20) Complexity Meets Finance Workshop Satellite, Rome, Italy, September 17–25, 2020.

“From the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 to Covid-19: Differences and Similarities.” Plenary invited talk, Tenth International Conference on Complex Systems, New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) Virtual Conference, Nashua, N.H., July 27–31, 2020.

“Natural Language Processing and Deep Learning Approach to Forecasting Corporate Revenue.” Complex Systems in Finance and Economics Workshop, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, January 17, 2020.

“Forecasting business cycles and identifying significant economic events by using novel network methodologies.” 15th Econophysics Colloquium, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, October 2–3, 2019.

“Interdisciplinary approaches to modeling economic and financial systems.” College of Computer Science and Engineering, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia, September 6, 2019.

“Novel approach to forecasting corporate earnings using artificial intelligence.” School of Management, University of San Andres, Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 4, 2019.

“Modeling financial time series using deep learning neural networks.” Network Science School and Conference (NetSci19) Statistical Physics of Financial and Economic Networks (SPFEN) Satellite, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt., May 28, 2019.

“Complexity and fragility of global financial systems.” College of Science and Technology, Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan, May 23, 2018.

“Network-based modeling of systemic risk propagation in global financial systems.” Joint International Econophysics Conference & Asia–Pacific Econophysics Conference, New Delhi, India, November 15–18, 2017.

“Innovative modeling of cascading failures in global financial networks.” 9th ICT Innovation Conference, Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, September 18–23, 2017.

“Macroprudential regulation and policy tools for monitoring global financial networks.” Institute for Economics, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, September 19, 2017.

“Macroprudential stress testing of global financial institutions.” Executive LLM in International Business Law, Boston University School of Law, Boston, Mass., August 23, 2017.

“Understanding bubbles and global financial crises: Can we soften the systemic risk effect?” Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, May 25, 2017.

“Model for systemic risk propagation in shared portfolio networks.” Department of Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, May 15, 2017.

“Economics and Politics of Financial Crises.” Fulbright Alumni Association–American Corner, Belgrade, Serbia, March 14, 2016.

“Innovation and technology in financial markets.” Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, Serbia, March 14, 2016.

“Investments and Risk Management.” Munich Business School (MBS) Master International Week, MBS, Munich, Germany, March 9–11, 2016.

“High frequency trading and flash crash challenges for regulators.” College of Computer Science and Engineering, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, March 7, 2016.

“Time correlation and news insights into Japanese and US stock market dynamics.” 7th Research Meeting of the Consortium for Systemic Risk Analytics (CSRA), MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, Mass., December 1, 2015.

“Predictability of global financial markets using logistic regression and complex networks.” ECONOPHYS–2015, International Workshop on “Econophysics and Sociophysics,” New Delhi, India, November 27–December 1, 2015

“A systemic stress test model in bank-asset networks, Netconomics Satellite.” Conference on Complex Systems (CCS’15), Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz., September 28–October 2, 2015.

“Network approach to predictability of news sentiments and financial markets.” 11th Econophysics Colloquium (EC2015), Institute for Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, September 14–16, 2015.

“Bipartite network approach in constructing a recommender system for financial time series forecasting.” Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, May 27, 2015.

“Women in Science and Engineering: Opportunities and Challenges.” Gender Equality Office, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan, March 19, 2015.

“Complex Hilbert Principal Component Analysis of foreign exchange and stock market networks.” Macroeconomic Workshop, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, March 17, 2015.

“Lead-Lag relationships in synchronization financial market coupled networks.” Graduate School of Simulation Studies, University of Hyogo, Kobe, Japan, March 16, 2015.

“A systemic stress test model in bank-asset networks.” 6th Research Meeting of the Consortium for Systemic Risk Analytics (CSRA), MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, Mass., December 15, 2014.

“Network Approach to Systemic Risk and System Response.” Boston University School of Management (SMG) Research Seminar, Boston, Mass., November 5, 2014.

“Global Financial Crisis and Social Networks.” European University of the Republic of Macedonia (EURM), Skopje, Macedonia, October 1, 2014.

“Global stock markets and foreign exchange as coupled financial systems.” European Conference on Complex Systems (ECCS’14), Institute for Advanced Studies (IMT), Lucca, Italy, September 22–26, 2014.

“Interdependencies and causalities in coupled financial networks.” International Conference on Statistical Physics, Rhodes, Greece, July 7–11, 2014.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., Arai, Y., and Stanley, H. E. “Co-moving synchronization network: Model for global financial system dynamics.” International Conference on Econophysics, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China, May 31–June 2, 2014.

“Data Analytics in Finance: Opportunities and Challenges.” BU–IBM Data Analytics Symposium, Boston, Mass., April 30, 2014.

“Multiplex Financial Network Dependencies.” 5th Research Meeting of the Consortium for Systemic Risk Analytics (CSRA), MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, Mass., December 12, 2013.

“Global Financial Crises Effects on World Trade Relationships.” Conference on Evolution of International Trading System: Prospects and Challenges, St. Petersburg State University, School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia, October 31–November 1, 2013.

“Causes and Consequences of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.” The Fifth Anniversary of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and Massachusetts Council for Economic Education, Boston FED, Boston, October 8, 2013.

Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Zhou, D., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Centrality Measures of Systemically Important Global Financial Markets: Eigenvector Approach.” Financial Networks and Systemic Risk Conference, Kyoto, Japan, July 17–19, 2013.

Vodenska, I., Zhou, D., Dehmami, N., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Multiplex network interdependencies of currency markets and global stock market indices.” Horizons in Social Sciences, IMT Lucca, Tuscany, Italy, July 9–11, 2013.

Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. “Effects of European Sovereign Debt Crises on Global Financial Markets.” Global Sustainable Finance Conference, Karlsruhe, Germany, July 4–5, 2013.

Vodenska, I., Zhou, D., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Cascading Failures in Institutional Investor Network Caused by Systemically Important Banks, Complexity in Social Systems: From Data to Models.” University of Cergy–Pontoise, Paris, France, June 27–28, 2013.

Vodenska, I., Dehmami, N., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “European Sovereign Debt of Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal (GIPSI) Effect on Global Financial Institutions.” 9th International Network Science (NetSci) Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 3–7, 2013.

Vodenska, I., Dehmami, N., and Stanley, H. E. “Complexity and Systemic Risk Propagation in Global Economic Networks.” FuturICT Conference at Media Lab, MIT, Cambridge, Mass., February 13–14, 2013.

Vodenska, I., Huang, X., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Extreme events and boom–bust processes in complex financial and economic systems.” New Views on Extreme Events, ETH Risk Center Conference at Swiss Re, Zurich, Switzerland, October 25–26, 2012.

Vodenska, I., Dehmami, N., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Complexity and Dynamics of Financial and Economic Networks.” European Conference on Complex Systems (ECCS) 2012, COINET, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, September 2–7, 2012.

Vodenska, I., Huang, X., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Cascading Failures in Bipartite Graphs: Model for Systemic Risk Propagation.” 8th International Network Science (NetSci) Conference, Northwestern University, Evanston/Chicago, Ill., June 18–22, 2012.

Vodenska, I., Wang, F. Z., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. “Similarity of Investment Strategies and Global Financial Crisis.” Perspectives and Challenges in Statistical Physics and Complex Systems for the Next Decade, Natal, Brazil, November 9–11, 2011.

Scientific Journal Reviewer

Nature Reviews Physics (2020–Present)
Journal of Financial Stability (2017–Present)
Nature’s Scientific Reports (2013–Present)
PlosOne (2013–Present)
Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination (JEIC) (2013–Present)
Physica A (2009–present)

Editorial Board Member

Cambridge University Press – Elements of Econophysics
Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems – The Frontiers Open Access Journal
Entropy Journal Topics Board – MDPI Journals

Conference and Workshop Organizer

International School and Conference on Network Science (NetSci20), Rome, Italy, September 17–25, 2020
Big data in Economics, Science, and Technology (BEST) Conference (2013–Present)
Workshop on Complex Systems in Finance and Economics, Kyoto, Japan, Jan 17, 2020

Grants and Awards

2020–2021: Principal Investigator (PI) for Boston University on a Department of Defense, Network Science Division, Army Research Office (ARO)-Awarded Grant Entitled: “Student and Faculty Support for Participation at the International Conference on Network Science (NetSci 2020). Sponsor Award ID: W911NF2010187; Amount $18,000.

2016–2019: Participant (collaborator) as a member of the Nihon University team in the Post-K computer grant awarded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan, Entitled: Exploratory Challenges: Studies of Multi-level Spatiotemporal Simulation of Socioeconomic Phenomena, Macroeconomic Simulations. Amount 215,000,000 Yen ($2.1 Million) for the Consortium, of which 24,000,000 Yen ($240,000) for Nihon University.

2014–2015: Principal Investigator (PI) for Boston University on National Science Foundation (NSF)-Awarded Grant Entitled: “Modeling Systemic Risk: Finding Precursors of Emerging Financial Crises.” EAGER Award number: SES-1452061; Amount $57,721.

2012–2014: Principal Investigator (PI) for Boston University on European Commission-Awarded Grant Entitled “Forecasting Financial Crises.” FET Open Project ‘‘FOC’’ 255987 and‘‘FOC-INCO’’ 297149; Amount $3.5million for the Consortium, of which $300,000 for BU.

1995–1996: Owen Graduate School of Management Fellowship, Vanderbilt University.

1994: Alexander Hamilton Fulbright Fellowship.

Faculty Q&A

How does your experience in the field of investment banking inform the curriculum for MET’s graduate programs in financial management?

My investment banking experience gave me a basis for creating a plethora of real-world experiences for our students, preparing them for the financial industry and for the corporate world. At MET, we teach our MS in Financial Management (MSFM) students that the real world is dynamic and global, and that they should expect to see that reflected in the financial markets as well. If they would like to become part of this exciting investment fabric, they will need to be prepared and alert.

While working in investment banking, among other learning opportunities, I went through several highly volatile events that dismayed the financial markets. I also witnessed, firsthand, a formation (in the late 1990s) and a bursting (in the early 2000s) of the dot-com bubble. I experienced two particularly notable, volatile events. First was the 1998 Russian sovereign bond crisis, when Russia defaulted on its sovereign bonds and a famous hedge fund operating with extremely high-leverage strategies, Long Term Capital Management, collapsed. The Federal Reserve arranged for a consortium of 16 major financial institutions to step up and keep the fund afloat, in essence bailing it out until it dissolved in 2000.

This bailout, I believe, set the stage for the global financial crisis ten years later in 2008, encouraging moral hazard and low-risk averseness for major financial institutions; Russia’s default on its sovereign bonds sent ripples through global financial markets, the U.S. stock market plunged, and investors panicked.

The second notable and volatile crisis was the terrorist attack in 2001. I was in Manhattan during the September 11 terrorist attack, where I was trading European equities, whose values nosedived immediately after the attacks on the twin towers in New York City. While the U.S. markets did not open that day, the European markets were already in trading session for more than five hours and reacted sharply to the terrorist attacks, losing significant value in a very brief period of time. Again investors panicked.

In a more regular, everyday setting, working in convertible bond trading and convertible arbitrage as well as risk arbitrage, trading fixed income and equity securities in the U.S. and European markets, called for early morning diligence in reading the financial press (the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, etc.) in order to prepare strategies for the day. No single day was the same as the one before. The market dynamics constantly reminded each securities trader and investment professional that staying on top of news and transforming the news into actionable strategies was essential.

Throughout the curriculum, we think about and ask numerous intriguing questions. We teach our students to ask the hard questions addressing real-world problems that are often fuzzy and unstructured. We accomplish the real-world experience in the classroom through projects, assignments, and a master’s thesis. This approach, bringing to a close proximity the theoretical instruction and the real-world experiences, is well-suited to prepare our students to be competitive in the corporate world upon their graduation.

How do the courses you teach prepare students to evaluate and adhere to financial regulations?

We incorporate financial regulation and ethics in many of the finance courses offered in the MS in Financial Management program, including corporate finance, investment analysis and portfolio management, or derivatives securities and markets. In 2017 we introduced a new core course, Financial Regulation and Ethics (MET AD 678), that all students in our program are required to take. Rachel Spooner, lecturer at BU’s Questrom School of Management, kindly shared with me her insights from a securities regulation course that she is teaching for Questrom’s MBA program and suggested case studies as I embarked on my journey to develop a financial regulation course for the MET MSFM program. I co-developed and co-taught this course with BU School of Law Professor Tamar Frankel, who graciously offered to co-teach the MET financial regulation course with me in the fall 2017 semester.

Professor Frankel is very inspiring and collaborating with her is an exceptionally enriching experience for me. She offered suggestions for improving the course and for setting the course’s future direction. Out of many hours of discussions with Professor Frankel, an idea was born to write a book together that will serve as a textbook for the MET financial regulation course. So, during the fall 2018 semester, while I am on sabbatical, Professor Frankel and I are working on the new book, titled The Financial System and Regulation.

The financial regulation course focuses on key federal statutes that regulate securities and participants in the securities markets, such as the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Investment Company and Investment Advisor acts of 1940, the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, the Dodd–Frank Act of 2010, the JOBS Act of 2012, and several criminal statutes applicable to securities fraud and related offenses. We use examples and case studies to understand the practical application of the laws that cover the securities industry and the publicly traded companies. Our students learn that financial services participants, such as investment bankers, brokers, dealers, and investment advisors, are all subject to financial regulation. Companies and their employees or directors who violate federal securities laws and regulations can face civil enforcement actions by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and criminal prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice. We strive to teach our students that the securities laws are important because they are enacted to protect investors; maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets; and facilitate capital formation. We discuss whistleblower protection under the securities law, the practices that constitute insider trading, as well as the foreign corrupt practices act and the bank secrecy act. MET AD 678 is unique and extremely important for the students in our program. It makes them think, share opinions regarding specific discussion points, engage in idea exchange, and constantly learn from one another.

What real-life examples or case studies do you use in the classroom to illustrate these concepts?

Financial Regulation and Ethics (MET AD 678) includes many case studies to inform on specific securities laws and the application of the securities statutes. We study classic securities cases from the 1940s, such as SEC v. Howey, where the definition of a security and an investment contract was disputed. We also look into the case of Microsoft at the time when the company was planning to offer shares to the general public in the 1980s. Bill Gates was reluctant to take the company public but he made $350 million when Microsoft did its Initial Public Offering, or IPO.

When addressing the importance of materiality and the responsibility of the companies that trade publicly to tell the whole truth to investors at all times, we study TSC Industries v. Northway and Basic v. Levinson. We discuss case studies that cover various types of insider trading and students have an opportunity to learn different aspects of insider trading, and when is it legal or illegal to trade on a non-public information. Some of the insider trading cases that we discuss in class include Chiarella v. U.S., U.S. v. O’Hagan, Dirks v. SEC, and U.S. v. Martoma.

Students also learn about the importance of whistleblowers and the protection that they have under the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 or under the Dodd–Frank Act of 2010. In class, we discuss the following whistleblowing case studies: Berman v. Neo@Ogilvy LLC and WB Digital Realty Trust v. Somers. The case studies inspire critical thought and motivate students to share their opinions, even if their proposed resolutions of the cases are contrary to the U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Sometimes even the Supreme Court justices can split almost evenly. Students are encouraged to debate the issues covered in the case studies, offer their opinions about how they think the cases should have been decided, and defend their opinions with solid arguments and logic.

Congratulations on the acceptance of your paper, “Macroprudential stress testing of global financial systems,” to the Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Conference this fall. Can you provide an overview?

Stability of the banking system and macroprudential regulation are essential for healthy economic growth. The paper that I presented at the FMA Annual Meeting conference in October 2018 in San Diego, California, addresses the need for systemic stress testing of the entire financial system by the bank regulators, taking into consideration the common exposures of the financial institutions. Systemic stress testing calls for thorough understanding of the bank network effect, or the risk that the interconnectivity and interdependence of the banking industry brings into the economy. In this paper, we study the European bank network and its vulnerability to stressing different bank assets. The importance of macroprudential policy is emphasized by the inherent vulnerability of the financial system, high level of leverage, similar risk exposure of financial institutions, and susceptibility for systemic crisis propagation through the bank network.

Current stress tests conducted by the European Banking Authority do not take into consideration the connectivity of the banks and the potential of one bank’s distress spilling over to the rest of the system. We create a bipartite network with bank nodes on one hand and asset nodes on the other, with weighted links between the two network layers based on the level of different countries’ sovereign debt holdings by each bank. Based on this network topology of the banking system, we propose a model for systemic risk propagation taking in consideration common bank exposures to specific asset classes. We analyze the dynamics of tier one capital ratio after stressing the bank network and find that while the system is able to withstand shocks for a wide range of parameters, we can identify a critical threshold for asset risk beyond which the system transitions from stable to unstable.

I remember delivering a presentation titled “Causes and Consequences of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis,” at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on October 8, 2013, at the fifth anniversary of the 2008 global financial crisis, and at that time we had more questions than we had answers. This year is the tenth anniversary of that crisis, and a conference, “2008 Financial Crisis: a ten-year review,” took place November 8–9, 2018, in New York City, co-organized by the Annual Review of Financial Economics Journal, MIT’s Golub Center for Finance and Policy, and NYU’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. Experts like Ben Bernanke, Douglas Diamond, Robert Engle, Timothy Geithner, Deborah Lucas, Myron Scholes, and Jean-Claude Trichet offered their insights into the 2008 global financial crisis and talked about the future of finance.

How do countries, in particular the United States, prepare to weather recessions and financial crises that have the potential to impact our interconnected global economy?

The main actors who need to prepare to withstand financial crises are really the banks. It should be the financial institutions’ responsibility to maintain healthy balance sheets and to properly assess their risk exposures in order to be able to live through financial crisis and function on their own without a need by the government to bail them out.

The bailout of large banks in 2008, mandated by the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 that authorized the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury to spend $700 billion to inject liquidity into the financial system, invoked quite a bit of revolt and controversy. The notion that the banks could reap the benefits of high-leverage and high-risk investments, while not being responsible for the losses from such strategies, was deemed unfair. The public was generally questioning the right of the banks to have tax payers’ money cover their losses while banks enjoyed extraordinary profits, not subsidizing the government or deciding to build bridges and schools, but instead paying large bonuses to their executives. On the other hand, the supporters of the bailout called for government action in order to save the financial system and prevent a more severe and prolonged crisis, where tax payers too could have suffered for an extended period of time.

An important act that came as a response to the 2008 crisis was the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, signed into law by President Barack Obama. The Dodd–Frank Act primarily addressed the importance of financial stability by improving accountability and transparency of financial institutions. More importantly, it proposed protection of consumers from abusive financial institution practices. An important additional provision of the Dodd–Frank Act was the Volcker Rule, named for Paul Volcker, who was chairman of the Federal Reserve under presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan as well as chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board under President Obama. The Volcker Rule prohibits banks from making certain investments with their own funds, i.e., it limits bank proprietary trading operations. I had the pleasure of discussing the evolving economic and banking issues with Paul Volcker on several occasions, which has been quite an enlightening experience for me. As for the Dodd–Frank Act, in February 2017, President Donald Trump issued an executive order for regulators to review the Act and to outline possible reforms, namely rolling back some of the consumer protection provisions outlined in it. Hence, we are experiencing a “yo-yo” effect of too-much or a too-few regulations, while, in reality, we need to think about better regulations instead.

Which course(s) do you teach at MET?

As MET faculty, I have taught the following graduate-level courses:

How do the concepts students learn in MET’s financial management graduate programs apply in practice?

The MS in Financial Management curriculum is truly as hands-on as is possible in academic setting. Given that most of MET faculty have corporate experience, either having worked in the industry before becoming full-time academics or currently working full time and teaching as part-time faculty at MET, they bring real-world experience to the classroom.

The financial services are developing with a rapid pace, and our program evolves to meet the challenges and the needs of financial services. Today’s finance professional needs to have solid knowledge of finance—i.e., be able to analyze financial statements, understand financial markets, create budgets, and make capital investment decisions. However, this is not enough. Financial regulation is also changing, and finance professionals need to be familiar with the dynamics of the regulatory environment. Besides these aspects, a finance professional of the future needs to possess additional competitive skills, especially because of technology advancements. Technology creates a competitive environment requiring students to learn quantitative methods and acquire analytics skills that will help them with performing financial analysis, creating trading algorithms, analyzing news sentiments, and inferring how certain macroeconomic indicator trends might affect future economic developments, in the U.S. and globally. For any field in finance—including investment banking, money management, or securities trading—students need to have understanding of many different aspects of finance to be successful.

MET’s Master of Science in Financial Management program offers a concentration in International Finance and a concentration in Investment Analysis, which closely follows the Chartered Financial Analyst candidate body of knowledge, or the CFA CBOK. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, financial analyst jobs are projected to grow by 11% through 2026, which is above average for all occupations.

One should also keep in mind that financial advisors will be in high demand, especially because the baby boomers are approaching retirement and they will need to prepare for a financially secure future by having comprehensive financial plans and personal financial advisers to create, maintain, and update these financial plans as needed.

The financial services are very innovative, constantly developing and changing, and the most valuable professionals will be the ones able to restructure, transform, and improve their knowledge constantly, even after obtaining graduate degrees. This is the reason why we teach our students to think, to learn how to learn, and to evolve and excel through implementation.

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