A chance meeting at a JPMorganChase office watercooler led to University of Delaware alumna Morgan Dean giving a lecture and meeting with UD Financial Services Analytics (FSAN) faculty and students during her daylong visit to the FinTech Innovation Hub on May 2.
Dean, a 2005 UD graduate with a degree in political science and now the Head of CCB Risk Modeling at JPMC, was walking through her building when she noticed fellow UD alum and current Vice President, Applied AI ML Lead Kexin Yin, wearing a UD shirt.
Dean struck up a conversation with Yin, who completed her doctoral degree in FSAN in 2021, which led to a lunch with the pair and Bintong Chen, Chaplin Tyler Professor and Program Director of the M.S. and Ph.D. FSAN program at UD.
That meeting led to Dean, along with Yin and FenQing Zhao, Head of CCB Credit Risk and ICB Risk Modeling at JPMC, spending an informative day with UD administrators, faculty, and students.
After a welcoming session, Dean delivered a Distinguished Alumni Lecture to FSAN students, faculty members and administrators, followed by a lunch with Zhao, Lerner Dean Oliver Yao, Lerner Associate Dean for Graduate Programs Andrea Everard, and Chen.
Dean and Zhao then participated in an exchange with UD Institute for Financial Services Analytics (IFSA) faculty members and then had a dialogue with the FSAN students hosted by Professor of Finance and JPMC Senior Faculty Fellow Paul Laux, before the day wrapped up with a tour of the FinTech building.
The highlight of the day was Dean’s distinguished alumni lecture to the UD community, where she touched on consistent themes in using data to develop models, drive innovation, and improve outcomes for consumers.
Innovation, efficiency, regulatory compliance, and enhanced customer experience all help lead JPMC to a competitive advantage over its competitors, according to Dean.
“I tried to emphasize the importance of innovation, and how our talent strategy plays a part in that,” Dean said. “We’ve had a lot of great folks join our team from these programs. What are some of the challenges we face? Regulated industries, like all sorts of different industries, face unique challenges, so I just encouraged them to think about how what they’re researching can help solve those problems and drive impact.”
Dean also talked to the students about professional development, including focusing on continued learning, networking, mentoring, and taking advantage of exposure to senior leadership.
“I just gave (the students) some practical advice, hopefully they thought might be helpful as they transition from academic to industry,” she said. “Things that can help make the transition a bit easier, which I kind of learned trial by fire.”
During the afternoon, Dean met the FSAN M.S. and Ph.D. students and listened to four FSAN students’ presentations about their research projects and provided constructive feedback and suggestions.
Zeyu Chen, a third-year doctoral candidate in the program who presented about improving fairness in machine learning, and especially applications in improving fair lending outcomes, was appreciative of Dean’s visit.
“It’s been a great experience, because I really learned a lot from Morgan and the UD alumni, especially about new fintech innovations in banks,” he said. “That’s very important, because it’s related to my research. Plus, it’s a great alternative for me to learn about these businesses and how they operate with these technical innovations.”
First-year doctoral student Homa Aghabebaei is working on the integration between machine learning and optimization in order to improve credit scoring and loan pricing, which she said is a fundamental problem in the financial board industry.
“I wanted to bridge a gap between the current practice and some new ideas I have brought to make the lending process more accurate and profitable,” said Aghabebaei, who echoed Chen’s comments on the day.
“It’s been great for me, because the research that I’m currently working on is highly related to the banking industry. So that was very inspiring to me, and very helpful to hear (Dean’s) feedback on the topic.”
Third-year doctoral student Nicolas Bello, whose research centered on hypergraphs and integrating data set information when making predictions about stock movements, also mentioned how beneficial it was for the students to hear about Dean’s expertise.
“I think it was very important because her experiences with the bank and actual applications of how we can use our methodologies are very insightful,” he said. “We usually don’t get to see how those things are applied in practice.”
The presentations left Dean impressed with the students and their research.
“It was great to meet the students, and great to see their passion for the research subject,” she said. “Having talent that is excited about the subject matter really translates into motivated individuals who will succeed when they leave the program.”
After spending the day meeting with Lerner administrators, professors and students, Dean was impressed with the entire FSAN program.
“The discipline that the program has around research day one and just building that muscle is impressive,” she said. “The problems they’re trying to solve are real-world problems that people are trying to solve in the industry. So as long as they continue to approach their research that way, it will be very applicable as they transition outside the program.
“Everything that I learned through my education and the early part of my career, they have meshed into one program from an interdisciplinary, connectivity standpoint to create these very well-rounded students,” Dean said. “Which is really cool.”