{"id":2833,"date":"2020-08-20T15:37:51","date_gmt":"2020-08-20T19:37:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/?post_type=profile&#038;p=2833"},"modified":"2025-08-06T16:15:32","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T20:15:32","slug":"irena-vodenska","status":"publish","type":"profile","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/profile\/irena-vodenska\/","title":{"rendered":"Irena Vodenska"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Irena Vodenska is professor of finance and director of finance programs at Boston University\u2019s 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\u2019s 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. <span>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).<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"\/met\/files\/2024\/12\/Vodenska-CV-2024-12.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">View Dr. Vodenska&#8217;s Curriculum Vitae 2024-12<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h2 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Research Interests<\/h2><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Interdependent Network Theory and Systemic Risk Modeling<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Using a bipartite network approach to simulate toxic asset impact on financial crisis propagation across the US, European, and Japanese bank networks<\/li>\n<li>Modeling complex financial and economic systems such as bank liquidity networks and interdependent financial market networks<\/li>\n<li>Investigating interdependencies in global financial networks using complex principal component analysis and community detection algorithms to study stock and foreign exchange financial markets<\/li>\n<li>Studying the European Sovereign debt crisis and modeling the relationships within the European bank\u2013government debt coupled network<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Big Data Analytics, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Complex Economic Systems<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Using big data, including intraday pricing and news streaming, to forecast global financial market returns<\/li>\n<li>Investigating the relations between news sentiments and risk and return time series for global equities, foreign exchange, and international stock market indices<\/li>\n<li>Studying extensive archives of international news to understand the relationship between news sentiments and macroeconomic indicators<\/li>\n<li>Investigating natural language processing approaches, including deep learning and neural network methods, to classifying algorithms for financial and economic news topic recognition<\/li>\n<li>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<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Blockchain Opportunities and Challenges, and Cryptocurrency Price Forecasting<\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>Studying the network of bitcoin transactions and price dynamics (volatility) of cryptocurrencies<\/li>\n<li>Investigating financial micro-blog impulses effect on bitcoin prices and analyzing the relationship of bitcoin prices with prices of other financial assets<\/li>\n<li>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<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h2 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Courses<\/h2><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<ul><div class=\"course-feed\"><\/p>\n<li>MET AD 580 \u2013 Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Investments<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>MET AD 632 \u2013 Financial Concepts<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>MET AD 678 \u2013 Financial Regulation and Ethics<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>MET AD 712 \u2013 Financial Markets and Institutions<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>MET AD 713 \u2013 Derivative Securities and Markets<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>MET AD 717 \u2013 Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management<\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<li>MET AD 763 \u2013 Multinational Finance and Trade<\/li>\n<p><\/div><\/ul>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h2 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Scholarly Works<\/h2><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<h3>Publications<\/h3>\n<h4>Peer-reviewed journal articles<\/h4>\n<p>Barlow, J., Vodenska, I. &#8220;Socio-Economic Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic in the U.S.&#8221; <em>Entropy<\/em> 23, no. 6 (2021): 673. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/e23060673\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/e23060673<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., N. Dehmamy, A. P. Becker, S. Buldyrev, and S. Havlin. &#8220;Systemic Stress Test Model for Shared Portfolio Networks.&#8221; <em>Nature\u2019s Scientific Reports<\/em> 11, no. 1 (2021): 1\u201312. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41598-021-82904-y\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41598-021-82904-y<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Becker, A. P., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., and Lungu, E. &#8220;Network approach to understanding the fragility of financial systems.&#8221; <em>Journal of Financial Stability<\/em> 52, article 100803 (2021). <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.jfs.2020.100803\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.jfs.2020.100803<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Smolyak, A., Levy, O., Vodenska, I., Buldyrev, S., and Havlin, S. &#8220;Mitigation of cascading failures in complex networks.&#8221; <em>Nature\u2019s Scientific Reports<\/em> 10, no. 1 (2020): 1\u201312.<\/p>\n<p>Souma, W., Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. &#8220;New Measures of Journal Impact Based on the Number of Citations and PageRank.&#8221; <em>Journal of Digital Information Management<\/em> 18, no. 1 (2020): 11.<\/p>\n<p>Iyetomi, H., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Souma, W., Vodenska, I., and Yoshikawa, H. &#8220;Relationship between Macroeconomic indicators and economic cycles in the U.S.&#8221; <em>Nature\u2019s Scientific Reports<\/em> 10, no. 1 (2020).<\/p>\n<p>Mishev, K., Gjorgjevikj, A., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L. T., and Trajanov, D. &#8220;Evaluation of Sentiment Analysis in Finance: From Lexicons to Transformers.&#8221; <em>IEEE Access<\/em> vol. 8 (2020): 131662\u2013131682 .<\/p>\n<p>Souma, W., Vodenska, I. and Aoyama, H. &#8220;Enhanced news sentiment analysis using deep learning methods.&#8221; <em>Journal of Computational Social Science <\/em>(2019): 1\u201314. <a href=\"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007%2Fs42001-019-00035-x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s42001-019-00035-x<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nishijima, M., Sarti, F. M., Vodenska, I., and Zhang, G. &#8220;Effects of decentralization of primary healthcare on diabetes mellitus in Brazil.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Public Health <\/em>vol. 166 (2019): 108\u2013120. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.puhe.2018.10.005\">doi: 10.1016\/j.puhe.2018.10.005<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Kremer, M., Becker, P., Vodenska, I., Stanley, E., and Scha\u0308fer, R. &#8220;Economic and political effects on currency clustering dynamics.&#8221; <em>Quantitative Finance<\/em> 19, no. 5 (2018): 705\u2013716. <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/14697688.2018.1532101\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">doi.org\/10.1080\/14697688.2018.1532101<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Bertella M. A., Pires F. R., Rego H. H. A., Silva J. N., Vodenska I., and Stanley H. E. &#8220;Confidence and self-attribution bias in an artificial stock market.&#8221;\u00a0<em>PLoS ONE<\/em> 12, no. 2 (2017): e0172258. doi:10.1371\/journal.pone.0172258<\/p>\n<p>Y. Sakamoto and I. Vodenska. &#8220;Systemic risk propagation in bank-asset network: New perspective of the Japanese banking crisis of the 1990s.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Journal of Complex Networks <\/em>5, no. 2 (Oxford University Press 2017): 315\u2013333. doi: 10.1093\/comnet\/cnw018<\/p>\n<p>I. Vodenska, H. Aoyama, Y. Fujiwara, H. Iyetomi, and Y. Arai. &#8220;Interdependencies and causalities in complex financial networks.&#8221;\u00a0<em>PLoS ONE<\/em> 11, no. 3 (2016): e0150994. doi:10.1371\/journal.pone.0150994<\/p>\n<p>A. Majdandzic, L. Braunstein, I. Vodenska, S. Levy, S. Havlin, and H. E. Stanley. &#8220;Multiple tipping points and optimal repairing in interacting networks.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Nature Communications<\/em> 7, article 10850 (2016). DOI: 10.1038\/ncomms10850 | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/ncomms10850\">https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/ncomms10850<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Y. Sakamoto and I Vodenska. &#8220;Impact of bankruptcy through asset portfolios.&#8221; <em>The European Physical Journal Special Topics<\/em> 225, nos. 6\u20137 (2016): 1311\u20131316.<\/p>\n<p>I. Vodenska, D. Zhou, A. Becker, D. Kenett, S. Havlin, and H. E. Stanley. &#8220;Community analysis of global financial markets.&#8221; <em>Risks<\/em> 4, no. 2 (2016): 13.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ubiquitous Technology-Enhanced Teaching of Complex Financial Concepts.&#8221; <em>International Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research<\/em> 14, no. 2 (2015).<\/p>\n<p>C. Curme, H. E. Stanley, and I. Vodenska. &#8220;Coupled network approach to predict ability of financial market returns and news sentiments.&#8221; <em>International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance<\/em> 18, no. 7 (2015).<\/p>\n<p>D. Y. Kenett, X. Huang, I. Vodenska, S. Havlin, H. E. Stanley. &#8220;Partial correlation analysis: Applications for financial markets.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Journal of Quantitative Finance<\/em> 15, no. 4 (2015).<\/p>\n<p>M. Piskorec, N. Antulov-Fantulin, P. K. Novak, I. Mozetic, M. Grcar, I. Vodenska, and T. Smuc. &#8220;Cohesiveness in Financial News and its Relation to Stock Market Volatility.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Nature Scientific Reports<\/em> 4, article 5038 (2014). DOI:10.1038\/srep05038<\/p>\n<p>L. Chitkushev, I. Vodenska, and T. Zlateva. &#8220;Digital Learning Impact Factors: Student Satisfaction and Performance in Online Courses.&#8221; <em>International Journal of Information &amp; Education Technology<\/em> 4, no. 4 (2014).<\/p>\n<p>X. Huang, I. Vodenska, S. Havlin, and H. E. Stanley. &#8220;Cascading Failures in Bi-partite Graphs: Model for Systemic Risk Propagation.&#8221; N<em>ature Scientific Reports<\/em> 3, article 1219 (2013). DOI:10.1038\/srep01219<\/p>\n<p>I. Vodenska and L. Chitkushev. &#8220;Impact of Euro Adoption on Emerging European Countries.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Management Journal<\/em> 8, no. 1 (2013): 47\u201367.<\/p>\n<p>X. Huang, I. Vodenska, F. Z. Wang, S. Havlin, and H. E. Stanley. &#8220;Identifying influential directors in the United States corporate governance network.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Physical Review E<\/em> 84, no. 4 (2011): 046101.<\/p>\n<p>I. Vodenska, F. Z. Wang, P. Weber, K. Yamasaki, S. Havlin, and H. E. Stanley. &#8220;Comparison between volatility return intervals of the S&amp;P 500 index and two common models.&#8221; <em>The European Physical Journal B<\/em> vol. 61 (2008): 217\u2013223.<\/p>\n<p>P. Weber, F. Wang, I. Vodenska-Chitkushev, S. Havlin, and H. E. Stanley. &#8220;Relation between volatility correlation in financial markets and Omori processes occurring on all scales.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Physical Review E<\/em> 76, no. 1 (2007): 016109.<\/p>\n<h4>Books and Book Chapters<\/h4>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and Becker, A. P. \u201cInterdependence, vulnerability, and contagion in financial and economic networks.\u201d In <em>New Perspectives and Challenges in Econophysics and Sociophysics<\/em>, edited by F. Abergel, B. K. Chakrabarti, A. Chakraborti, N. Deo, and K. Sharma (Springer, May 15, 2019): 101\u2013116.<\/p>\n<p>Abergel, F., Aoyama, H., Chakrabarti, B. K., Chakraborti, A., Deo, N., Raina, D., and Vodenska, I. (editors). <em>Econophysics and Sociophysics: Recent Progress and Future Directions <\/em>(Springer International Publishing, 2017).<\/p>\n<p>D. Y. Kenett, J. Gao, X. Huang, S. Shao, I. Vodenska, S. V. Buldyrev, G. Paul, H. E. Stanley, and S. Havlin. &#8220;Network of Interdependent Networks: Overview of Theory and Applications.&#8221; In <em>Networks of Networks: The Last Frontier of Complexity<\/em>, edited by G. D&#8217;Agostino and A. Scala (Springer, Berlin, 2014): 3\u201336.<\/p>\n<h4>Working Papers<\/h4>\n<p>Dehmami, N., S. Buldyrev, S. Havlin, H. E. Stanley, and I. Vodenska. \u201cFinancial network stability indicators\u201d (to be submitted to Frontiers in Physics).<\/p>\n<p>Stosic, D., D. Stosic, I. Vodenska, H. S. Stanley, and T. Stosic. \u201cA new look at calendar anomalies: multifractality and day of the week effect\u201d (working paper).<\/p>\n<p>Mishev, I. Vodenska, L. Chitkushev, and D. Trajanov. \u201cForecasting corporate revenues by using natural language processing and deep learning neural network approaches\u201d (working paper).<\/p>\n<p>Davchev, J., K. Mishev, I. Vodenska, L. Chitkushev, and D. Trajanov. \u201cNews network connectivity effects on cryptocurrency volatility dynamics\u201d (working paper).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and W. Zhou. \u201cUnderstanding the effect of the financial crisis and the affordable care act on insurance claim costs\u201d (working paper).<\/p>\n<p>Becker, A. P., I. Vodenska, and X. Zhang. \u201cBank-firm lending relationships and covenant-based decision making\u201d (working paper).<\/p>\n<p>Becker, A. P., D. Garlaschelli, and I. Vodenska. \u201cReconstruction of financial networks and systemic risk modeling\u201d (working paper).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and M. Zarkovic. \u201cGrowth determinants of the old and the new E.U. countries\u201d (working paper).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and V. Delevski. \u201cOptimal Government Size for Sustainable Growth\u201d (working paper).<\/p>\n<h4>Refereed Conference Proceedings<\/h4>\n<p>Davchev, J., Mishev, K., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Trajanov, D. &#8220;Bitcoin Price Prediction using Transfer Learning on Financial Micro-blogs.&#8221; In <em>Proceedings of the 16th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science<\/em>\u00a0(September 5, 2020).<\/p>\n<p>Mishev, K., Gjorgjevik, A., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., Souma, W., and Trajanov, D. &#8220;Forecasting Corporate Revenue by Using Deep-Learning Methodologies.&#8221; In <em>Proceedings of the International Conference on Control, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics &amp; Optimization (ICCAIRO)<\/em> vol. 1 (2019): 115\u2013120. DOI Bookmark: 10.1109\/ICCAIRO47923.2019.00026<\/p>\n<p>Mishev, K., Gjorgjevikj, A., Stojanov, R., Mishkovski, R., Irena Vodenska, Lubomir Chitkushev, and Dimitar Trajanov. &#8220;Performance Evaluation of Word and Sentence Embedding for Finance Headlines Sentiment Analysis.&#8221; In <em>Proceedings of the 11th International Conference, ICT Innovations<\/em>. Ohrid, North Macedonia (October 17\u201319, 2019).<\/p>\n<p>Dodevska, L., Petreski, V., Mishev, K., Gjorgjevikj, A., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev. L., and Trajanov, D. &#8220;Predicting companies\u2019 stock price direction by using sentiment analysis of news articles.&#8221; In the<em>\u00a015th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science. <\/em>Fulda and Bamberg, Germany (June 28\u2013July 1, 2019).<\/p>\n<p>Tolic, D., Antulov-Fantulin, N., Piskorec, M., Ce, Z., and Vodenska, I. &#8220;Inferring short-term volatility indicators from the Bitcoin blockchain.&#8221; In <em>Springer Proceedings from the 7th International Conference on Complex Systems and Their Application<\/em>s. Cambridge, United Kingdom (December 11\u201313, 2018).<\/p>\n<p>Gjorgjevikj, A., Mishev, K., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Trajanov, D. &#8220;Foreign direct investment net inflows: data-driven analysis.&#8221; In the<em> 14th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science<\/em>. Boston, Mass. (June 29\u2013July 2, 2018).<\/p>\n<p>Wallschlaeger, M., Becker, A., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., and Schaefer, R. &#8220;Economic and political effects on currency clustering.&#8221; In <em>World Finance and Banking Symposium.<\/em>\u00a0Bangkok, Thailand (December 14\u201315, 2017).<\/p>\n<p>Trajanov, D., Vodenska, I., Cvetanov, G, and Chitkushev, L. &#8220;Data driven analysis of trade, FDI and international relations on a global scale.&#8221; In the <em>13th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science.<\/em>\u00a0Albena, Bulgaria (June 30\u2013July 3, 2017).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, I., and Arai, Y. &#8220;Interdependencies and Causalities in Coupled Financial Networks.&#8221; In the <em>29th Australasian Finance and Banking Conference (AFBC).<\/em> Sydney, Australia (December 14\u201316, 2016).<\/p>\n<p>Dehmamy, N., Byldirev, S., Havlin, S., Stanley, H. E., and Vodenska, I. &#8220;A systemic stress test model in bank-asset networks.&#8221; In <em>World Finance and Banking Symposium. <\/em>Dubai, UAE (December 14\u201315, 2016).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, I., and Arai, Y. &#8220;Interdependencies and Causalities in Coupled Financial Networks.&#8221; In the <em>2016 Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Meeting<\/em>. Las Vegas, Nev. (October 19\u201322, 2016).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Trajanov, D., Trajanovska, I., and Chitkushev, L. &#8220;Impact of Global Events on Crude Oil Prices.&#8221; In the <em>12th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science.<\/em> Nurnberg, Germany (July 1\u20134, 2016).<\/p>\n<p>Trajanov, D., Trajanovska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Vodenska, I. &#8220;Using Google Big Query for Data Analytics in Research and Education.&#8221; In the <em>12th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science<\/em>. Nurnberg, Germany (July 1\u20134, 2016).<\/p>\n<p>Curme, C., Stanley, H. E. and Vodenska, I. &#8220;Coupled Network Approach to Predictability of Financial Market Returns and News Sentiments.&#8221; In the <em>World Finance and Banking Symposium.<\/em>\u00a0Hanoi, Vietnam (December 17\u201318, 2015).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and Runchev, N. &#8220;Real effective exchange rate and transitional economy of the Republic of Macedonia.&#8221; In the <em>World Finance and Banking Symposium.<\/em> Singapore (December 12\u201313, 2014).<\/p>\n<p>Zhou, D., Vodenska, I., Kenett, D. Y., Stanley, H. E., Havlin, S. &#8220;Systemic importance of global financial markets and distress propagation.&#8221; In the <em>2014 Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Meeting<\/em>. Nashville, Tenn. (October 15\u201318, 2014).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Joseph, A., Stanley, H. E., Chen, G. &#8220;Novel forecasting techniques using big data, network science and economics.&#8221; In proceeding series <em>Communications in Computer and Information Science<\/em> 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\u20136, 2014).<\/p>\n<p>Zhou, D., Vodenska, I., Kenett, D. Y., Stanley, H. E., Havlin, S. &#8220;Systemic Importance of Global Financial Markets and Distress Propagation.&#8221; In the <em>World Finance Conference<\/em>. Ca\u2019Foscari University, Venice, Italy (July 2\u20134, 2014).<\/p>\n<p>Chitkushev, L., Vodenska, I., and Zlateva, T. &#8220;Digital Learning Impact Factors: Student Satisfaction and Performance in Online Courses.&#8221; In <em>Proceedings of the ICIET 2014: 2nd International Conference on Information and Education Technology.<\/em>\u00a0Melbourne, Australia (January 2\u20133, 2014).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and Chambers, W. &#8220;Relation between VIX option-based implied volatility index and S&amp;P 500 index volatility.&#8221; In the <em>Proceedings of the 26th Australasian Finance and Banking Conference (AFBC).<\/em> Sydney, Australia (December 16\u201319, 2013).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. &#8220;Innovative tools for teaching complex financial concepts.&#8221; In the <em>9th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education.<\/em> Fulda\/Wurzburg, Germany (June 29\u2013July 2, 2013).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. &#8220;Emerging European Countries and the Euro Adoption Policies.&#8221; In <em>Euro-Conference 2012.<\/em>\u00a0Portoroz, Slovenia (July 12\u201314, 2012).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. &#8220;Ubiquitous Technology-Enhanced Teaching of Complex Financial Concepts.&#8221; In the <em>4th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (SCEDU) 2012.<\/em>\u00a0Porto, Portugal (April 16\u201318, 2012).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Zlateva, T. &#8220;Integrating Informatics Into Graduate Finance Programs.&#8221; In the 7<em>th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education.<\/em>\u00a0Sofia, Bulgaria (July 6\u201310, 2011).<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Innovative Web-Based Tools for Finance Education.&#8221; In the <em>6th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education.<\/em> Fulda\/Munich, Germany (June 26\u201329, 2010).<\/p>\n<h4>Conference Presentations<\/h4>\n<p>Liu, C., Zhou, S., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., Zhang, G., Gheitanchi, S., and Rawassizadeh, R. \u201cBlockchain Technology in Healthcare: A Scientific and Technological Driving Force.\u201d 34th IEEE Computer-Based Medical Systems (CBMS) Conference, June 7\u20139, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTransfer Learning Methodology for Bitcoin Price Prediction.\u201d Blockchain Conference (BCK21), Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, February 17\u201318, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Julio, I., Becker, A. P., Vodenska, I., and Wang, Liyuan. \u201cCorporate leverage ratio adjustment under cash flow-based debt covenants.\u201d Poster, American Economic Association (AEA), Allied Social Science Association (ASSA) Conference, January 3\u00ad\u20135, 2021 (Virtual Conference).<\/p>\n<p>Aras, P., Zhang, G., Lucas, M., Rawassizadeh, R., Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. \u201cQuality assessment of inpatient medical claim data.\u201d Poster, IEEE BIBM Online, December 16\u201319, 2020 (Virtual Conference).<\/p>\n<p>Barlow, J., and Vodenska, I. \u201cSocio-economic impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic.\u201d 33rd Australasian Finance and Banking Conference, Sydney, Australia, December 15\u201317, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Davchev, J., Mishev, K., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Trajanov, D. \u201cImpact of Cryptocurrency tweet sentiments on crypto prices.\u201d Conference on Complex Systems (CCS2020), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece, December 7\u201312, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Barlow, J., and Vodenska, I. \u201cModeling economic cascades due to a pandemic shock.\u201d Conference on Complex Systems (CCS2020), Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece, December 7\u201312, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Zarkovic, M., Vodenska, I., Tomic, A., and Chitkushev, L. \u201cSocio-economic determinants of growth in the European Union.\u201d World Finance and Banking Symposium, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia, December 5\u20136, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Becker, A., Garlaschelli, D., and Vodenska, I. \u201cSystemic Risk Underestimation in Reconstructed Networks.\u201d 16th International Network Science Conference (NetSci\u201920), Rome, Italy, September 17\u201325, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Davchev, J., Mishev, K., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Trajanov, D. \u201cFinancial Micro-blog network impact on cryptocurrency returns.\u201d 16th International Network Science Conference (NetSci\u201920), Rome, Italy (September 17\u201325, 2020).<\/p>\n<p>Barlow, J., and I. Vodenska. \u201cCascading failure in economic networks: The case of COVID-19.\u201d 16th International Network Science Conference (NetSci\u201920), Rome, Italy, September 17\u00ad\u201325, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Becker, A., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cBank systemic importance and fragility of financial networks.\u201d World Finance Conference (WFC), University of Malta, Malta, September 4\u20136, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Prachiti, A., Zhang, G., Rawassizadeh, R., Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. \u201cData Quality Assessment of Medical Insurance Claims.\u201d The 16th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science, September 5, 2020 (Virtual Conference).<\/p>\n<p>Davchev, J., Mishev, K., Vodenska, I., Chitkushev, L., and Trajanov, D. \u201cForecasting Bitcoin Prices based on Financial Tweets.\u201d The 16th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science, September 5, 2020 (Virtual Conference).<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Becker, A., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cDynamic model for measuring the stability of financial systems.\u201d 29th European Financial Management Association (EFMA) conference, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, June 24\u201327, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Becker, A., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cSystemic Stress Test Model for Networks of Financial Institutions.\u201d 11th International Conference on Complex Networks (CompleNet \u201920), University of Exeter, United Kingdom, March 31\u2013April 3, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Davchev, J., Vodenska, I., Mishev, K., Chitkushev, L., and Trajanov, D. \u201cTransfer learning methodology for Bitcoin price prediction based on financial micro-blogs.\u201d International Conference on Blockchain Applications, Blockchain in Kyoto 2020, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, February 27\u201328, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Becker, A., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cVulnerability of Interconnected Financial Networks.\u201d International Conference on Network Science, NetSci-x 2020, Tokyo, Japan, January 20\u201323, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Souma, W., Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. \u201cNew Measure of Journal Impact based on the Number of Citations and PageRank.\u201d First International Conference on Science and Technology Metrics, Kasetsart University, Bangkok, Thailand, December 2\u20134, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Souma, W., Vodenska, I., and Aoyama, H. \u201cNews sentiment analysis in the U.S. and Japan using deep learning methods.\u201d Conference on Complex Systems (CCS\u201919), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, September 30\u2013October 4, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Mishev, K., Trajanov, D., and Chitkushev, L. \u201cForecasting financial and economic dynamics using artificial neural network and deep learning methodologies.\u201d Conference on Complex Systems (CCS\u201919), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, September 30\u2013October 4, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Souma, W., Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. \u201cNew measures of journal impact based on citation network.\u201d 17th International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy, September 2\u20135, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCurrent trends and the future of fintech: Robo-advising fiduciary based on deep learning.\u201d The 7th Big Data in Economics, Science, and Technology (BEST) conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 5\u20137, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Kremer, M., Becker, A., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., and Schaefer, R. \u201cCurrency stability and political and economic uncertainties.\u201d World Finance Conference (WFC), Santiago, Chile, July 24\u201326, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Becker, A. P., Fujiwara, Y., and Iyetomi, H. \u201cNetwork approach to understanding vulnerabilities of financial systems.\u201d International School and Conference on Network Science, (NetSci-X 2019), Santiago, Chile, January 3\u20135, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Souma, W., and Vodenska, I. \u201cEnhanced news sentiment analysis using deep learning methods.\u201d PRIMA 2018: The 21st International Conference on Principles and Practice of Multi-Agent Systems, Tokyo, Japan, October 29\u2013November 2, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., and Becker, A. P. \u201cMacroprudential stress testing of global financial systems.\u201d Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Meeting, San Diego, Calif., October 10\u201313, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., and Becker, A. P. \u201cComplex network approach to understanding and improving financial system stability.\u201d 14th Econophysics Colloquium, Palermo, Sicily, Italy, September 12\u201314, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Becker, A. P., Fujiwara, Y., and Iyetomi, H. &#8220;Understanding the fragility of financial systems.&#8221; World Finance Conference (WFC), Mauritius, Africa, July 25\u201327, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and Cai, W. &#8220;Impact of Federal Reserve announcements on major financial market sectors.&#8221; The 6th Big Data in Economics, Science, and Technology (BEST) conference, Kallithea, Macedonia, Greece, July 12\u201314, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Becker, A. P., Fujiwara, Y., and Iyetomi, H. &#8220;Network approach to understanding the fragility of financial systems.&#8221; Net-O-Nets Satellite, 14th International Network Science Conference (NetSci\u201918), Paris, France, June 11\u201315, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Becker, A. P., Fujiwara, Y., and Iyetomi, H. &#8220;Systemic risk and vulnerabilities in bank networks.&#8221; Financial Management Association (FMA) European Conference, Kristiansand, Norway, June 13\u201315, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Becker, A. P., Fujiwara, Y., and Iyetomi, H. &#8220;Systemic risk propagation and distress in bank networks.&#8221; Financial Management Association (FMA) Asia\/Pacific Conference, Hong Kong, HK, May 16\u201318, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Sakamoto, Y., and Vodenska, I. &#8220;Network approach to determining vulnerabilities of financial institutions.&#8221; Poster presentation, CompleNet\u201918, Boston, Mass., March 4\u20138, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. &#8220;Global investment networks and financial crises.&#8221; Poster presentation, Econophysics-2017 &amp; APEC-2017, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Delhi University, New Delhi, India, November 15\u201318, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Becker, A., Wollschla\u0308ger, M., Vodenska, I., and Schaefer, R. &#8220;Systemic risk and vulnerabilities of bank networks.&#8221; Second Conference on Network Models and Stress Testing for Financial Stability, Banco de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico, September 26\u201327, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Becker, A., Wollschla\u0308ger, M., Vodenska, I., and Stanley, H. E. &#8220;Macroprudential policymaking effects on currency clustering.&#8221; Conference on Complex Systems (CCS\u201917), Cancun, Mexico, September 17\u201322, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Nishijima, M., Sarti, F. M., Vodenska, I., and Zhang, G. &#8220;Evaluating the primary healthcare decentralization on diabetes indicators: The case of Brazilian HiperDia program for diabetes.&#8221; 2017 Congress of the International Health Economics Association: Revolutions in the Economics of Health Systems, Boston, Mass., July 7\u201311, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Modeling systemic risk and behavioral response in financial networks.&#8221; 5th International Conference on Big Data in Economics, Science and Technology, Phuket, Thailand, July 19\u201321, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Using big data simulation as an early warning signal for global financial crises.&#8221; Computer Science and Education in Computer Science (CSECS) 2017, Albena, Bulgaria, June 30\u2013July 3, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Sakamoto, Y., and Vodenska, I. &#8220;Network approach to determining vulnerabilities of financial institutions.&#8221; Poster presentation, 13th International Network Science Conference (NetSci\u201917), Indianapolis, Ind., June 19\u201323, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., and Lungu, E. &#8220;A network approach for macroprudential monitoring of systemic risk and bank stability.&#8221; International School and Conference on Network Science, 2nd Workshop on Statistical Physics for Financial and Economic Networks, Indianapolis, Ind., June 19, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., and Lungu, E. &#8220;Challenges in macroprudential regulation for bank network stability.&#8221; The 22nd annual Workshop on the Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents (WEHIA), Universita\u0300 Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy, June 12\u201314, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Wollschlager, M., Becker, A., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., and Schaefer, R. &#8220;Economic and political effects on currency clustering dynamics.&#8221; Seventh Annual Applied Finance Conference of the Financial Management Association, New York, N.Y., May 12, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., and Lungu, E. &#8220;Sovereign Debt Network.&#8221; The 21st meeting of the Japanese Association for Evolutionary Economics, Tokyo, Japan, March 26, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. &#8220;Systemic risk propagation in bank networks.&#8221; Complex Network Conference\u2014CompleNet\u201917, Dubrovnik, Croatia, March 21\u201324, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. &#8220;Model for systemic risk propagation in shared portfolio networks.&#8221; 3nd International School and Conference on Network Science (NetSci-x), Tel Aviv, Israel, January 15\u201318, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>Sakamoto, Y., and Vodenska, I. &#8220;Network approach to understanding the 1990s Japanese Financial Crisis.&#8221; Conference on Complex Systems (CCS\u201916), Amsterdam, Netherlands, September 19\u201322, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Sakamoto, Y., and Vodenska, I. &#8220;Cascading Failure Model and New Perspective on the 1990s Japanese Banking Crisis.&#8221; Asia- Pacific Econophysics Conference, University of Tokyo, Japan, August 24\u201326, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Wollschlager, M., Becker, A., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., and Schaefer, R. &#8220;Economic and Political influences in foreign exchange markets.&#8221; 3rd Big Data in Economics, Science, and Technology Conference, Bali, Indonesia, July 20\u201322, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Wollschlager, M., Becker, A., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., and Schaefer, R. &#8220;Currency classification and structural changes in foreign exchange markets.&#8221; 12th International Network Science Conference (NetSci\u201916), Seoul, South Korea, May 30\u2013June 3, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Curme, C., and Stanley, H. E. &#8220;Network-logistic regression approach to understanding the relationships between financial markets and social media\u2013news sentiments.&#8221; 20th International Conference on Socio-economic systems with ICT and Networks, University of Tokyo, Japan, March 26\u201327, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., H. Aoyama, Y. Fujiwara, H. Iyetomi, and Y. Arai. &#8220;Interdependencies and causalities in complex financial networks.&#8221; Poster presentation, 2nd International School and Conference on Network Science (NetSci-x), Wroclaw, Poland, January 11\u201313, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Mullokandov, A., Dehmamy, N., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., Mozetic, I., and Kralj-Novak, P. &#8220;Empirically validated model of stock return dynamics.&#8221; Conference on Complex Systems (CCS\u201915), Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz., September 28\u2013October 2, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Curme, C., Stanley, H. E., and Vodenska, I. &#8220;Coupled network approach to predictability of financial market returns and news sentiments.&#8221; Conference on Complex Systems (CCS\u201915), Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz., September 28\u2013October 2, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Becker, A., Zhou, D., Kenett, D., Stanley, H. E., and Havlin, S. &#8220;Community analysis of global financial markets.&#8221; Conference on Complex Systems (CCS\u201915), Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz., September 28\u2013October 2, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Sakamoto, Y., and Vodenska, I. &#8220;Dynamics of communities in multiplex synchronization networks.&#8221; 11th Econophysics Colloquium (EC2015), Institute for Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, September 14\u201316, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Curme, C., and Stanley, H.E. &#8220;Bipartite network approach to understanding important predictors in news\u2013markets coupled network,.&#8221; 2nd Big Data in Economics, Science, and Technology Conference, Ohrid, Macedonia, July 20\u201322, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Curme, C., Stanley, H. E. &#8220;Can financial news sentiments predict stock market performance?&#8221; 11th International Network Science Conference, Zaragoza, Spain, June 1\u20135, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. &#8220;Systemic stress test in shared portfolio network.&#8221; International School and Conference on Network Science, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, January 14\u201316, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Aoyama, H., Vodenska, I., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., and Arai, Y. &#8220;Synchronization network of global foreign exchange and equity markets.&#8221; Third International Workshop on Complex Networks and their Applications, Marrakech, Morocco, November 23\u201327, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Mullokandov, A., Novak, P. K., and Mozetic, I. &#8220;Understanding the relationship between news analytics and financial time series.&#8221; European Conference on Complex Systems (ECCS\u201914), Institute for Advanced Studies (IMT), Lucca, Italy, September 22\u201326, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Lead-lag relationships in synchronization financial networks: Crisis vs. non-crisis period dynamics.&#8221; International Workshop on Big Data and Macroeconomics, Grand Weilea, Maui, Hawaii, August 22\u201324, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Chitkushev, L., Zlateva, T., Vodenska, I., and Zlatev, V. &#8220;Analytics Dashboard Parameters for Digital Learning Management Systems.&#8221; 10th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education in Computer Science (CSECS 2014), Albena, Bulgaria, July 4\u20137, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., and Arai, Y. &#8220;Interconnectivity between equity and foreign exchange markets.&#8221; 10th International School and Conference on Network Science, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., June 2\u20136, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Dehmamy, N., Vodenska, I., Buldyrev, S., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. &#8220;A Dynamical Model of Systemic Risk in Bank-Asset Networks.&#8221; Poster presentation, 10th International School and Conference on Network Science, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., June 2\u20136, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmamy, N., Mullokandov, A., Novak, P. K., and Mozetic, I. &#8220;Financial news sentiment structure and entity clustering.&#8221; 10th International School and Conference on Network Science, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., June 2\u20136, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Joseph, A., Vodenska, I., Stanley, H. E., and Chen, G. &#8220;MLR Fit-Network of Global Balance of Payments.&#8221; Poster presentation, 10th International School and Conference on Network Science, University of California, Berkeley, Calif., June 2\u20136, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Kenett, D. Y., Huang, X., Vodenska, I., Havlin, S., Stanley, H. E. &#8220;Partial Correlation Analysis of the Stock Market.&#8221; Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Eastern Economic Association, Boston, Mass., March 6\u20139, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmami, N., Battiston, S., and Stanley, H. E. &#8220;Systemic Risk Propagation from Troubled European Economies to Global Banks and Investment Funds.&#8221; Workshop on Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents (WEHIA), Reykjavik, Iceland, June 18\u201322, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Pis\u030ckorec, M., Antulov-Fantulin, N., S\u030cmuc, T., Mozetic\u030c, I., Novak, P.K., Grc\u030car, M., and Vodenska, I. &#8220;Quantifying the Impact of Cohesiveness in Financial News.&#8221; 10th European Conference on Complex Systems (ECCS\u201913), Barcelona, Spain, September 16\u201320, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmami, N., Battiston, S., Havlin, S. and Stanley, H. E. &#8220;Model of Financial Network Dynamics under Systemic Risk.&#8221; 10th European Conference on Complex Systems (ECCS\u201913), Barcelona, Spain, September 16\u201320, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Zhou, D., Kenett, D., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. &#8220;Distress Propagation in Coupled Foreign Exchange and Stock Market Networks.&#8221; 25th International Conference on Statistical Physics (StatPhys25), Seoul, South Korea, July 22\u201326, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. &#8220;Web Portal for Financial Informatics Research and Education.&#8221; 8th Annual International Conference on Computer Science and Education, Boston, Mass., July 5\u20139, 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Zhou, D., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. &#8220;Model for Systemic Risk Propagation in Financial Networks.&#8221; Latsis Symposium 2012, Economics on the Move, Trends and Challenges from the Natural Sciences, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, September 11\u201314, 2012.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Using Interactive Synchronous Tablet Tools in Online Finance Courses.&#8221; Third Instructional Innovation Conference, Boston University, March 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Chitkushev, L., Zlatev, V., and Vodenska, I. &#8220;Advantages of Blended Format for International Programs.&#8221; Second Annual FABDE Conference on Distance Education, Boston, Mass., May 11, 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Huang, X., Vodenska, I., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. &#8220;A New Approach for Determining the Influence of Directors in US Corporate Governance Network.&#8221; International Conference on Complex Network Science, Cambridge, Mass., May 10\u201314, 2010.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Using Stock-Trak<sup>\u00ae<\/sup> for Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management: An Academic Tool for Real Life Risk Assessment.&#8221; First Instructional Innovation Conference, Boston University, March 2009.<\/p>\n<h4>Invited Talks<\/h4>\n<p>\u201cA Bird\u2019s-Eye View into the Origin of Systemic Risk: Financial Institutions, Sovereign Debt, and Public Health and Policy.\u201d Northwestern University, Institute on Complex Systems, January 27, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCan artificial intelligence improve financial and economic forecasting?\u201d International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Complex Socio-Economic Systems and Public Policy, Jindal Global University, India, January 20\u201322, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom Tulips to Raging Bulls: Financial Crises are Viral.\u201d School and Conference on Network Science (NetSci20) Complexity Meets Finance Workshop Satellite, Rome, Italy, September 17\u201325, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 to Covid-19: Differences and Similarities.\u201d Plenary invited talk, Tenth International Conference on Complex Systems, New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) Virtual Conference, Nashua, N.H., July 27\u201331, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNatural Language Processing and Deep Learning Approach to Forecasting Corporate Revenue.\u201d Complex Systems in Finance and Economics Workshop, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, January 17, 2020.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cForecasting business cycles and identifying significant economic events by using novel network methodologies.\u201d 15th Econophysics Colloquium, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, October 2\u20133, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInterdisciplinary approaches to modeling economic and financial systems.\u201d College of Computer Science and Engineering, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Republic of North Macedonia, September 6, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNovel approach to forecasting corporate earnings using artificial intelligence.\u201d School of Management, University of San Andres, Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 4, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cModeling financial time series using deep learning neural networks.\u201d Network Science School and Conference (NetSci19) Statistical Physics of Financial and Economic Networks (SPFEN) Satellite, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt., May 28, 2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cComplexity and fragility of global financial systems.\u201d College of Science and Technology, Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan, May 23, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNetwork-based modeling of systemic risk propagation in global financial systems.\u201d Joint International Econophysics Conference &amp; Asia\u2013Pacific Econophysics Conference, New Delhi, India, November 15\u201318, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInnovative modeling of cascading failures in global financial networks.\u201d 9th ICT Innovation Conference, Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, September 18\u201323, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMacroprudential regulation and policy tools for monitoring global financial networks.\u201d Institute for Economics, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, September 19, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMacroprudential stress testing of global financial institutions.\u201d Executive LLM in International Business Law, Boston University School of Law, Boston, Mass., August 23, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnderstanding bubbles and global financial crises: Can we soften the systemic risk effect?\u201d Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, May 25, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cModel for systemic risk propagation in shared portfolio networks.\u201d Department of Physics, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan, May 15, 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEconomics and Politics of Financial Crises.\u201d Fulbright Alumni Association\u2013American Corner, Belgrade, Serbia, March 14, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInnovation and technology in financial markets.\u201d Faculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, Serbia, March 14, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInvestments and Risk Management.\u201d Munich Business School (MBS) Master International Week, MBS, Munich, Germany, March 9\u201311, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHigh frequency trading and flash crash challenges for regulators.\u201d College of Computer Science and Engineering, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, March 7, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTime correlation and news insights into Japanese and US stock market dynamics.\u201d 7th Research Meeting of the Consortium for Systemic Risk Analytics (CSRA), MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, Mass., December 1, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPredictability of global financial markets using logistic regression and complex networks.\u201d ECONOPHYS\u20132015, International Workshop on \u201cEconophysics and Sociophysics,\u201d New Delhi, India, November 27\u2013December 1, 2015<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA systemic stress test model in bank-asset networks, Netconomics Satellite.\u201d Conference on Complex Systems (CCS\u201915), Arizona State University, Tempe, Ariz., September 28\u2013October 2, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNetwork approach to predictability of news sentiments and financial markets.\u201d 11th Econophysics Colloquium (EC2015), Institute for Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic, September 14\u201316, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBipartite network approach in constructing a recommender system for financial time series forecasting.\u201d Faculty of Computer Science and Engineering, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje, Republic of Macedonia, May 27, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWomen in Science and Engineering: Opportunities and Challenges.\u201d Gender Equality Office, Niigata University, Niigata, Japan, March 19, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cComplex Hilbert Principal Component Analysis of foreign exchange and stock market networks.\u201d Macroeconomic Workshop, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, March 17, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLead-Lag relationships in synchronization financial market coupled networks.\u201d Graduate School of Simulation Studies, University of Hyogo, Kobe, Japan, March 16, 2015.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA systemic stress test model in bank-asset networks.\u201d 6th Research Meeting of the Consortium for Systemic Risk Analytics (CSRA), MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, Mass., December 15, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNetwork Approach to Systemic Risk and System Response.\u201d Boston University School of Management (SMG) Research Seminar, Boston, Mass., November 5, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGlobal Financial Crisis and Social Networks.\u201d European University of the Republic of Macedonia (EURM), Skopje, Macedonia, October 1, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGlobal stock markets and foreign exchange as coupled financial systems.\u201d European Conference on Complex Systems (ECCS\u201914), Institute for Advanced Studies (IMT), Lucca, Italy, September 22\u201326, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInterdependencies and causalities in coupled financial networks.\u201d International Conference on Statistical Physics, Rhodes, Greece, July 7\u201311, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Iyetomi, H., Arai, Y., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cCo-moving synchronization network: Model for global financial system dynamics.\u201d International Conference on Econophysics, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China, May 31\u2013June 2, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cData Analytics in Finance: Opportunities and Challenges.\u201d BU\u2013IBM Data Analytics Symposium, Boston, Mass., April 30, 2014.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMultiplex Financial Network Dependencies.\u201d 5th Research Meeting of the Consortium for Systemic Risk Analytics (CSRA), MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, Mass., December 12, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGlobal Financial Crises Effects on World Trade Relationships.\u201d Conference on Evolution of International Trading System: Prospects and Challenges, St. Petersburg State University, School of Economics, St. Petersburg, Russia, October 31\u2013November 1, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCauses and Consequences of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Aoyama, H., Fujiwara, Y., Zhou, D., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cCentrality Measures of Systemically Important Global Financial Markets: Eigenvector Approach.\u201d Financial Networks and Systemic Risk Conference, Kyoto, Japan, July 17\u201319, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Zhou, D., Dehmami, N., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cMultiplex network interdependencies of currency markets and global stock market indices.\u201d Horizons in Social Sciences, IMT Lucca, Tuscany, Italy, July 9\u201311, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., and Chitkushev, L. \u201cEffects of European Sovereign Debt Crises on Global Financial Markets.\u201d Global Sustainable Finance Conference, Karlsruhe, Germany, July 4\u20135, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Zhou, D., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cCascading Failures in Institutional Investor Network Caused by Systemically Important Banks, Complexity in Social Systems: From Data to Models.\u201d University of Cergy\u2013Pontoise, Paris, France, June 27\u201328, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmami, N., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cEuropean Sovereign Debt of Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal (GIPSI) Effect on Global Financial Institutions.\u201d 9th International Network Science (NetSci) Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, June 3\u20137, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmami, N., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cComplexity and Systemic Risk Propagation in Global Economic Networks.\u201d FuturICT Conference at Media Lab, MIT, Cambridge, Mass., February 13\u201314, 2013.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Huang, X., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cExtreme events and boom\u2013bust processes in complex financial and economic systems.\u201d New Views on Extreme Events, ETH Risk Center Conference at Swiss Re, Zurich, Switzerland, October 25\u201326, 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Dehmami, N., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cComplexity and Dynamics of Financial and Economic Networks.\u201d European Conference on Complex Systems (ECCS) 2012, COINET, Universite\u0301 Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium, September 2\u20137, 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Huang, X., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cCascading Failures in Bipartite Graphs: Model for Systemic Risk Propagation.\u201d 8th International Network Science (NetSci) Conference, Northwestern University, Evanston\/Chicago, Ill., June 18\u201322, 2012.<\/p>\n<p>Vodenska, I., Wang, F. Z., Havlin, S., and Stanley, H. E. \u201cSimilarity of Investment Strategies and Global Financial Crisis.\u201d Perspectives and Challenges in Statistical Physics and Complex Systems for the Next Decade, Natal, Brazil, November 9\u201311, 2011.<\/p>\n<h3>Scientific Journal Reviewer<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Nature Reviews Physics<\/em> (2020\u2013Present)<\/li>\n<li><em>Journal of Financial Stability<\/em> (2017\u2013Present)<\/li>\n<li><em>Nature\u2019s Scientific Reports<\/em> (2013\u2013Present)<\/li>\n<li><em>PlosOne<\/em> (2013\u2013Present)<\/li>\n<li><em>Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination (JEIC)<\/em> (2013\u2013Present)<\/li>\n<li><em>Physica A<\/em> (2009\u2013present)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Editorial Board Member<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Cambridge University Press \u2013 <em>Elements of Econophysics<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems \u2013 <em>The Frontiers Open Access Journal<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Entropy Journal Topics Board \u2013 <em>MDPI Journals<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Conference and Workshop Organizer<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>International School and Conference on Network Science (NetSci20), Rome, Italy, September 17\u201325, 2020<\/li>\n<li>Big data in Economics, Science, and Technology (BEST) Conference (2013\u2013Present)<\/li>\n<li>Workshop on Complex Systems in Finance and Economics, Kyoto, Japan, Jan 17, 2020<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Grants and Awards<\/h3>\n<p>2020\u20132021: Principal Investigator (PI) for Boston University on a Department of Defense, Network Science Division, Army Research Office (ARO)-awarded grant entitled, \u201cStudent and Faculty Support for Participation at the International Conference on Network Science (NetSci 2020). Sponsor Award ID: W911NF2010187; Amount $18,000.<\/p>\n<p>2016\u20132019: 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, &#8220;Exploratory Challenges: Studies of Multi-level Spatiotemporal Simulation of Socioeconomic Phenomena, Macroeconomic Simulations.&#8221; Amount 215,000,000 Yen ($2.1 Million) for the Consortium, of which 24,000,000 Yen ($240,000) for Nihon University.<\/p>\n<p>2014\u20132015: Principal Investigator (PI) for Boston University on National Science Foundation (NSF)-awarded grant entitled, \u201cModeling Systemic Risk: Finding Precursors of Emerging Financial Crises.\u201d EAGER Award number: SES-1452061; Amount $57,721.<\/p>\n<p>2012\u20132014: Principal Investigator (PI) for Boston University on European Commission-awarded grant entitled, \u201cForecasting Financial Crises.\u201d FET Open Project \u2018\u2018FOC\u2019\u2019 255987 and\u2018\u2018FOC-INCO\u2019\u2019 297149; Amount $3.5million for the Consortium, of which $300,000 for BU.<\/p>\n<p>1995\u20131996: Owen Graduate School of Management Fellowship, Vanderbilt University.<\/p>\n<p>1994: Alexander Hamilton Fulbright Fellowship.<\/p>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"bu_collapsible_container \" aria-live=\"polite\" data-customize-animation=\"false\"><h2 class=\"bu_collapsible\" aria-expanded=\"false\"tabindex=\"0\" role=\"button\">Faculty Q&amp;A<\/h2><div class=\"bu_collapsible_section\" style=\"display: none;\"><\/p>\n<div id=\"FaculityQA\">\n<p><strong>How does your experience in the field of investment banking inform the curriculum for MET\u2019s graduate programs in financial management?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/programs\/graduate\/financial-management\/\">MS in Financial Management<\/a> (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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s default on its sovereign bonds sent ripples through global financial markets, the U.S. stock market plunged, and investors panicked.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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 <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>, the <em>New York Times<\/em>, the <em>Financial Times<\/em>, 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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<hr style=\"width: 50%; text-align: center;\" \/>\n<p><strong>How do the courses you teach prepare students to evaluate and adhere to financial regulations? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/courses\/graduate\/administrative-studies\/#course-METAD678\">Financial Regulation and Ethics (MET AD 678)<\/a>, that all students in our program are required to take. Rachel Spooner, lecturer at BU\u2019s Questrom School of Management, kindly shared with me her insights from a securities regulation course that she is teaching for Questrom\u2019s 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/2017\/12\/08\/groundbreaking-financial-ethics-expert-met-teacher-lauded-for-influence\/\">Tamar Frankel<\/a>, who graciously offered to co-teach the MET financial regulation course with me in the fall 2017 semester.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s 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 <em>The Financial System and Regulation<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2013Oxley Act of 2002, the Dodd\u2013Frank 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.<\/p>\n<hr style=\"width: 50%; text-align: center;\" \/>\n<p><strong>What real-life examples or case studies do you use in the classroom to illustrate these concepts?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/courses\/graduate\/administrative-studies\/#course-METAD678\">Financial Regulation and Ethics (MET AD 678)<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n<p>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<em>. <\/em>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\u2019Hagan, Dirks v. SEC, and U.S. v. Martoma.<\/p>\n<p>Students also learn about the importance of whistleblowers and the protection that they have under the Sarbanes\u2013Oxley Act of 2002 or under the Dodd\u2013Frank 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.<\/p>\n<hr style=\"width: 50%; text-align: center;\" \/>\n<p><strong>Congratulations on the acceptance of your paper, \u201cMacroprudential stress testing of global financial systems,\u201d to the Financial Management Association (FMA) Annual Conference this fall. Can you provide an overview? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s 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&#8217; 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.<\/p>\n<p>I remember delivering a presentation titled \u201cCauses and Consequences of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis,\u201d 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, \u201c2008 Financial Crisis: a ten-year review,\u201d took place November 8\u20139, 2018, in New York City, co-organized by the Annual Review of Financial Economics Journal, MIT\u2019s Golub Center for Finance and Policy, and NYU\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<hr style=\"width: 50%; text-align: center;\" \/>\n<p><strong>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?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The main actors who need to prepare to withstand financial crises are really the banks. It should be the financial institutions\u2019 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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019 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.<\/p>\n<p>An important act that came as a response to the 2008 crisis was the Dodd\u2013Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, signed into law by President Barack Obama. The Dodd\u2013Frank 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\u2013Frank 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\u2013Frank 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 \u201cyo-yo\u201d effect of too-much or a too-few regulations, while, in reality, we need to think about better regulations instead.<\/p>\n<hr style=\"width: 50%; text-align: center;\" \/>\n<p><strong>Which course(s) do you teach at MET? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As MET faculty, I have taught the following graduate-level courses:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/courses\/graduate\/administrative-studies\/#course-METAD717\">Investment Analysis and Portfolio Management (MET AD 717)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/courses\/graduate\/administrative-studies\/#course-METAD713\">Derivative Securities and Markets (MET AD 713)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/courses\/graduate\/administrative-studies\/#course-METAD731\">Corporate Finance (MET AD 731)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/courses\/graduate\/administrative-studies\/#course-METAD763\">Multinational Financial Management (MET AD 763)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/courses\/graduate\/administrative-studies\/#course-METAD712\">Financial Markets and Institutions (MET AD 712)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/courses\/graduate\/administrative-studies\/#course-METAD632\">Financial Concepts (MET AD 632)<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/courses\/graduate\/administrative-studies\/#course-METAD678\">Financial Regulation and Ethics (MET AD 678)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr style=\"width: 50%; text-align: center;\" \/>\n<p><strong>How do the concepts students learn in MET\u2019s financial management graduate programs apply in practice?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>The financial services are developing with a rapid pace, and our program evolves to meet the challenges and the needs of financial services. Today\u2019s finance professional needs to have solid knowledge of finance\u2014i.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\u2014including investment banking, money management, or securities trading\u2014students need to have understanding of many different aspects of finance to be successful.<\/p>\n<p>MET\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/programs\/graduate\/financial-management\/\">Master of Science in Financial Management<\/a> program offers a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/programs\/graduate\/financial-management\/international-finance\/\">concentration in International Finance<\/a> and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/programs\/graduate\/financial-management\/investment-analysis\/\">concentration in Investment Analysis<\/a>, which closely follows the Chartered Financial Analyst candidate body of knowledge, or the CFA CBOK. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics <em>Occupational Outlook Handbook<\/em>, financial analyst jobs are projected to grow by 11% through 2026, which is above average for all occupations.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"responsive-video\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YgVT4KigOnk?si=8OoUDl_hzb-dxtKL\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":16254,"template":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/2833"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/profile"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16254"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/2833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95491,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile\/2833\/revisions\/95491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/met\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}