McMaster Graduate Alyssia Jovellanos Wins the North American Quant Championship

McMaster graduate Alyssia Jovellanos and Martin Ciesielski-Listwan are the North American Quant Champions, and will be representing Canada at the 2019 International Quant Championship (IQC) finals in Singapore.

The IQC is a competition organized by WorldQuant, a global quantitative asset management firm, and is a three-stage, team-based university competition running from March through September 2019. Participants are to use WorldQuant’s simulation platform to develop predictive mathematical models – also known as alphas – to simulate equity positions and assign weights to securities based on a prediction of the expected returns. Each qualifying alpha is scored based on its performance against alphas submitted by the other participants in the IQC.

The Canadian duo placed 3rd out of 18,000 teams in Stage 1 and 4th worldwide for Stage 2, making them the North American Champions. Should they place 1st in the next and final stage, which will be held from July 8 to September 6 in Singapore, Jovellanos and Ciesielski-Listwan would be bringing home with them the top prize of $20,000USD.