- Joined
- 3/24/08
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In case you haven't heard the news, Professor Neftci passed away yesterday in Geneva.
Professor Salih Neftci was born in Kirkuk from a family connected with oil fields but that had themselves emigrated from Turkmenistan... and he made his way to the highest circles of Istanbul, NY, London. He completed his PhD at the University of Minnesota and subsequently taught at George Washington University and at Columbia University where he was an adjunct professor. He maintained close links with US academia and Wall St., throughout his life through his full professorship at the Graduate School, City University of New York (CUNY).
He became best known for his book An Introduction to the Mathematics of Pricing Financial Derivatives - which became a standard text in many university derivatives courses. He was one of the most productive researchers in financial economics and taught in the areas of numerical methods in asset pricing, the mathematics of financial derivatives, emerging market asset trading strategies and advanced risk management.
I found his book on stochastic calc and thumbed through it. I was so impressed with how clear and intuition based his pedagogy was that I did a Google search on his name to find out where he taught. That's actually how I found out about Baruch. I didn't know he wasn't teaching here at the time, but I figured that any place this man teaches at would be a place of great learning and education (and I was right). Sadly, I never got a chance to take a class from this man.
Something else must be said about someone who can make such a good living in such a lucrative field and STILL be involved in education. Teaching + career is just as difficult as student + career. The man obviously educated because he enjoyed doing so. That makes his passing an even sadder tragedy for our field.
I would have at least liked to thank him for writing such wonderful books on mathematical finance.
Professor Salih Neftci was born in Kirkuk from a family connected with oil fields but that had themselves emigrated from Turkmenistan... and he made his way to the highest circles of Istanbul, NY, London. He completed his PhD at the University of Minnesota and subsequently taught at George Washington University and at Columbia University where he was an adjunct professor. He maintained close links with US academia and Wall St., throughout his life through his full professorship at the Graduate School, City University of New York (CUNY).
He became best known for his book An Introduction to the Mathematics of Pricing Financial Derivatives - which became a standard text in many university derivatives courses. He was one of the most productive researchers in financial economics and taught in the areas of numerical methods in asset pricing, the mathematics of financial derivatives, emerging market asset trading strategies and advanced risk management.
I found his book on stochastic calc and thumbed through it. I was so impressed with how clear and intuition based his pedagogy was that I did a Google search on his name to find out where he taught. That's actually how I found out about Baruch. I didn't know he wasn't teaching here at the time, but I figured that any place this man teaches at would be a place of great learning and education (and I was right). Sadly, I never got a chance to take a class from this man.
Something else must be said about someone who can make such a good living in such a lucrative field and STILL be involved in education. Teaching + career is just as difficult as student + career. The man obviously educated because he enjoyed doing so. That makes his passing an even sadder tragedy for our field.
I would have at least liked to thank him for writing such wonderful books on mathematical finance.
