Raffaella Calabrese (Co-Chair)
The University of Edinburgh
Raffaella is a Personal Chair of Data Science at the University of Edinburgh Business School and Director of the Fintech PhD programme. She is an academic fellow at the Scottish Parliament to support designing policies for financing small businesses.
Her research and collaborations with industry are focused on developing new analytical techniques for credit risk and the Fintech sector. The former includes scoring models, modelling of loss given default, stress testing, interpretability and affordability.
Raffaella has applied a variety of methods to measure default risk for SMEs and for retail credit in the context of Basel II and III. She is also working on interpretability for machine learning techniques and the use of alternative data (such as social media or mobile data) in the credit risk framework.
She is recently analysing the impact of climate change on credit risk. For Fintech, she has proposed novel solutions to assess risk using Open Banking data such as affordability test and credit scoring.
Gbenga Ibikunle (Co-Chair)
The University of Edinburgh
Gbenga is a Professor and Chair of Finance at the University of Edinburgh. As the Director for Industry, Economy, and Society at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, he leads strategic FinTech and Financial Services initiatives at The University of Edinburgh. He is also the Deputy Scientific Director at the Fondazione European Capital Markets Cooperative Research Centre in Pescara, Italy, and a Fellow at the Rozetta Institute (formerly Capital Markets CRC) in Sydney, Australia.
He is an expert on the Carbon Finance Unit of the World Bank's Partnership for Market Readiness Roster of Experts. He has been a Visiting Professor at Macquarie University in Sydney, Universidade Catolica Portuguesa, Porto, and China University of Petroleum, Beijing.
Gbenga holds a MBA (with distinction) and a PhD (in Market Microstructure) from the University of East Anglia. He also held teaching and research positions with the Norwich Business School and the Environmental & Energy Finance Group respectively. He is a graduate of Nigeria's first institution of higher learning, Yaba College of Technology, Lagos, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice from The University of Edinburgh.
Miguel de Carvalho
The University of Edinburgh
Miguel de Carvalho is a Reader in Statistics at the School of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh.
He is the former Director of the University of Edinburgh Centre for Statistics and current Co-Director of the Edinburgh Centre of Financial Innovation.
Miguel's research and trajectory have been recognized with a variety of awards, including the Lindley Prize from the International Society of Bayesian Analysis (ISBA) and Young Scientist Prize from the The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS). His research interests are diverse, spanning applied statistics, biostatistics, econometrics, risk analysis, and statistics of extremes. He is an Elected Fellow of the International Statistical Institute and has served as an Associate Editor for several leading statistical journals, including Journal of the American Statistical Association, The Annals of Applied Statistics, and The American Statistician.
With a wealth of collaborative experience, Miguel has forged strong relationships with banks, central banks, and financial regulators alike.
Tiejun Ma
The University of Edinburgh
Dr Tiejun Ma is a Reader in Business Informatics, theme leader for the Business Informatics, Artificial Intelligence and its Application Institute, University of Edinburgh, and a Faculty Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute.
Dr Ma's research focuses on risk analysis and decision-making using quantitative modelling and real-time Big Data analysis techniques applied to fintech and cyber-risk. He employs applied data science and mathematical modelling methodologies in the analysis/forecasts of risks using an interdisciplinary research strategy, via state-of-the-art computing, data, and behavioural analysis.
Khaladdin Rzayev
The University of Edinburgh
Khaladdin holds the position of Senior Lecturer in Finance at the University of Edinburgh. His research primarily centres on market microstructure and Financial Technology. He earned an MBA (with distinction) from Baku Engineering School, an MSc in Financial Economics (with distinction) from the University of Leicester, and a PhD in Finance from the University of Edinburgh.
Previously, Khaladdin served as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the London School of Economics. Additionally, he is recognized as a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice at The University of Edinburgh.
Taylor Spears
The University of Edinburgh
Taylor Spears is a Chancellor's Fellow in FinTech and Financial Services and serves as the Deputy Director for the MSc in Finance, Technology and Policy at the University of Edinburgh Business School. Taylor's research is situated in the social studies of finance and accounting, and focuses on how institutional, technological, and regulatory developments shape the way financial instruments are evaluated by market practitioners.
He received a PhD in Sociology from the University of Edinburgh (2014) and an MSc (with Distinction) in Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy from the University of Sussex (2010), which he attended as a US-UK Fulbright Scholar. He received his BSc (summa cum laude) in Economics (major concentration) and Mathematics (minor concentration) from Arizona State University in 2008.
Erica Francesca Di Girolamo
Scientific Officer, Joint Research Centre at European Commission
Erica is co-ordinating activities in the field of finance and financial stability. She joined the Joint Research Centre in 2009 and she has been actively involved in the work of the European Commission to create a safer and sounder financial system. From 2018 to 2019, she joined the Single Resolution Board before coming back to the European Commission in 2019.
Her more recent research focuses on digital finance, as well as climate risk and sustainability in the financial sector. Earlier, she has contributed to EC proposals on higher capital requirements for banks, harmonized deposit protection schemes and the EU framework for bank recovery and resolution.
Erica holds a Ph.D. in financial modelling from Katholieke Universiteit of Leuven, and a Degree in Mathematical Engineering from Politecnico di Milano.
