Portraits
“My chalkboard isn’t going away anytime soon!”
Damir Filipović, named best teacher in the financial engineering section for 2024, could very well have pursued a career in pure mathematics but instead chose the tumultuous field of quantitative finance.
“My class prepares students to make a real difference in the world”
Dr. Davide Bavato had long been torn between the academic world and his love of entrepreneurship – then he found a way to combine the best of both. Bavato was recently named the best teacher in EPFL’s management of technology and entrepreneurship section.
Education news
How to achieve system-wide collaboration for business continuity?
Organisations are increasingly reliant on interconnected systems and digital solutions to manage global disruption. At Risk-!n 2025, Elaine Moran of EPFL and cybersecurity veteran Geoffrey Kerr explained why trusted data is the essential enabler for business continuity and sustainability.
Congratulations to our latest Master graduates!
On the occasion of the traditional EPFL Graduation Ceremony on October 4th, 2025, 40 students of the Master in Financial Engineering (MFE), 36 students of the Master in Management, Technology & Entrepreneurship (MTE) and 31 students of the Master in Sustainable Management & Technology (SMT) jointly offered by UNIL, IMD and EPFL were awarded their diplomas.
EFG International Women in Finance Scholarship 2025
EFG International continues to support our Master’s program in Financial Engineering through a scholarship designed to encourage talented women in their studies.
Welcome to our new EDMT doctoral students!
The Doctoral Program in Management of Technology (EDMT) is pleased to welcome five new PhD students who officially joined the program.
Realstone Sustainable Finance Scholarship 2025
Aarav Desai, a Master’s student in Financial Engineering, has been selected from numerous applicants to receive the 2025 Realstone Sustainable Scholarship.
Research news
Gaétan de Rassenfosse co-leads a study for the U.S. Congress
In response to the Unleashing American Innovators Act (UAIA) of 2022, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) conducted a detailed study on its fee structure, particularly focusing on the impact on small and micro entities.
Ambiguity’s Role in Global Currency Hedging and Portfolio Stability
The paper written by Dr. Urban Ulrych and co-author Nikola Vasiljević has been published in the Journal of Banking & Finance. It explores optimal currency allocation for international investors who are both risk- and ambiguity-averse, using a robust mean–variance model that incorporates smooth ambiguity preferences. The findings show that accounting for ambiguity increases hedging demand, reduces estimation bias, and improves portfolio stability, as demonstrated through empirical analysis and out-of-sample backtesting.
Optimizing omnichannel assortments and inventory provisions
Prof. Ralf Seifert has recently published a new article in the European Journal of Operational Research (EJOR), a top-journal in the field of Operations Research. The article is entitled “Optimizing omnichannel assortments and inventory provisions under the multichannel attraction model”.
Balancing Cost and Precision: Optimal Ordering for Selective Assembly
Prof. Weber’s latest research, “Minimum-Cost Ordering for Selective Assembly,” features in the current issue of IISE Transactions, the flagship journal of the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers for over 55 years. The study provides a cost-optimal approach to ordering components for high-precision assembly, helping manufacturers cut costs while meeting strict quality standards.
Analyzing the Predictability of Crypto Markets
A new study by Jan Sila (Charles University, Prague), Michael Mark (an EDMT alumnus), Ladislav Kristoufek (Charles University, Prague), and Thomas Weber (Chair of Operations, Economics and Strategy, EPFL) provides the first comprehensive examination of how effectively traditional market risk measures—specifically market betas—can be applied to the rapidly evolving cryptocurrency sector.
Optimal Work-Rest Cycles
How should a system that wears down during active use and recovers during rest be operated for maximum long-term performance? A new study by Prof. Thomas A. Weber (Chair of Operations, Economics and Strategy, EPFL) develops a precise answer to this question, showing how to balance work and recovery in a way that optimizes average output over time.
Finance and Technology Programme report 2024
The Finance and Technology Programme at EPFL has published its annual report for 2024. It includes the scientific highlights, the research activities and the events that occurs in 2024. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to our partners Swissquote and Liquity for their constant and much appreciated support.
A New Paradigm for Multicriteria Decision Making
The question of how decision makers can transparently trade off among several objectives is the topic of Prof. Weber’s latest contribution to robust multicriteria decision making, which is forthcoming in Management Science, the top journal of the field.
Contribution to the launch of the Global Innovation Index 2025
Prof. Gaétan de Rassenfosse, Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy, was invited by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to take part in a high-level panel discussion at the launch of the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2025.
Predicting the Status of Project Portfolios Using Markov Chains
Firms often manage hundreds of concurrent projects with uncertain status trajectories. A new conference paper by Prof. Thomas A. Weber (Chair of Operations, Economics and Strategy, EPFL) introduces a finite-state Markov-chain framework that tracks and forecasts the evolving composition of project portfolios. The method yields forward-looking estimates of success rates, average durations, and resource balance across active and idle projects, supporting earlier risk detection and data-driven reprioritization at the portfolio level.
Novel method to track the commercialization of inventions
A new article co-authored by Prof. Gaétan de Rassenfosse, published in Research Policy, a Financial Times Top 50 journal, proposes an innovative method to measure the commercialization of patented inventions systematically.
Outreach
Keynote talk at the GTM 2025 in Georgia Tech for Prof. de Rassenfosse
Gaétan de Rassenfosse, Associate Professor at EPFL and Chair of Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy, will be the keynote speaker at the 2025 Global TechMining (GTM) Conference in Atlanta, Georgia.
Prof. Weber Delivers Plenary Keynote at SIST 2025 in Kazakhstan
At the 2025 IEEE 5th International Conference on Smart Information Systems and Technologies (SIST), which took place on May 14-16 in Astana, Kazakhstan, Prof. Weber delivered the first in a series of plenary keynotes on May 15. In his address, Prof. Weber discussed the use of Markov chains for project portfolio tracking and evaluation. An accompanying research paper, entitled “Data-Driven Markovian Project Portfolio Tracking,” is forthcoming on IEEE Xplore.
Daniel Kuhn plenary speaker at the AMASES Conference 2025
Daniel Kuhn gave a plenary talk titled “Wasserstein Distributionally Robust Optimization with Heterogeneous Data Sources” at the XLIX Annual Conference of the Italian Association for Mathematics.