Intensive course leader
Professor Ruediger Kiesel
Professor Ruediger Kiesel heads the chair for “Energy Trading and Financial Services” at the University Duisburg-Essen. Previously he has been Director of the Institute for Mathematical Finance at the University of Ulm. He also held positions as Lecturer and Reader for actuarial science and financial mathematics at Birkbeck College, University of London and London School of Economics. He is a Visiting Professor at the Center for Mathematics for Applications, Oslo University. His main research areas are risk management for power utility companies, design and analysis of Emission Trading Schemes, valuation and hedging of derivatives (interest-rate, credit- and energy-related), methods of risk transfer and structuring of risk (securitization). He is Co-author of the Springer Finance monograph Risk-Neutral Valuation (now in its second edition) and has written more than fifty published research papers.
He is a frequent speaker at international conferences and organized several conferences and practitioner seminars. Professor Kiesel also consults financial institutions, utilities and regulators on (credit- and energy-) risk management, derivative pricing models and asset allocation.
Plenary speakers
Dr. Rene Aid
Dr Rene Aid is a research engineer in the R&D group at EDF in Paris, and Deputy Head of EDF R&D Generation & Risk Management department. Dr Aid is a reputed researcher within the field of energy finance, with several publications in top academic journals. He is also a popular speaker at both industry and academic conferences world-wide. He is one of the founders and former executive director of the Finance for Energy Market Research Centre (FiME). FiME is a joint research project between the Université Paris-Dauphine, the Centre for Research in Economics and Statistics (CREST), the Ecole Polytechnique and the R&D Division of the EDF group.
Dr. Mark Cummins
Mark Cummins is a Lecturer in Finance at the Dublin City University Business School and Programme Chair of the Graduate Certificate/MSc in Sustainable Energy Finance. He holds a PhD in Quantitative Finance, with specialism in the application of integral transforms and the fast Fourier transform (FFT) for derivatives valuation and risk management. In addition to numerical finance, Mark also has a keen interest in a broad range of energy modelling, derivatives, risk management and trading topics. He also has a growing interest in the area of sustainable energy finance, with particular focus on the emissions markets. Linked to Mark's industry experience, he holds additional interests in the areas of model risk and model validation. He is published in international journals such as Energy Economics, Applied Energy and the Journal of Energy Markets, as well as mainstream finance journals such as the Journal of Financial Markets and Quantitative Finance.
Mark has previous industry experience working as a Quantitative Analyst within the Global Risk function for BP Oil International Ltd., based in Canary Wharf, London. As part of the Risk Quantitative Analysis team, his primary responsibilities included derivatives and price curve model validation and development, with a global remit across BP's oil, gas, power, commodities and emissions activities. He is actively engaged in consultancy work in the energy space, in particular providing industry training in energy markets, econometrics and risk management.
Dr. Andre Damslora
Holding a PhD in optimal Control, André Damslora has 20 years' experience in designing analytical frameworks and building mathematical models within a broad range of business areas. The applications include production of petrochemicals, light metals, fertilizer, oil/gas while the last 10 years has been in energy market analysis laying the foundations for the analysis departments in Enron Nordic Energy, Point Carbon (emissions market) and Statkraft (Continental European power markets).
Professor Valery Kholodnyi
Valery Kholodnyi is a Principal Quantitative Analyst with Verbund Trading as well as a Pauli Fellow at the Wolfgang Pauli Institute. Prior to these roles he served as a Managing Director of Quantitative Research and Risk Analytics at Platts, Chief Science Officer and Vice President of Research and Development at Integrated Energy Services, Director of Research at TXU Energy Trading, Director of Quantitative Analysis at Reliant Resources, and Professor of Financial Mathematics and Risk Management as well as Executive Director of the Center for Quantitative Risk Analysis at Middle Tennessee State University. He edited a book Quantitative Energy Finance as well as authored four books and over a hundred research papers in finance, mathematics, physics and engineering. He was an invited speaker at numerous international and national conferences both for the industry practitioners and academic researchers. He is an invited member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Energy Markets, Journal of Financial Engineering, Russian Journal of Risk Management, Journal of Nonlinear Analysis, and Journal of Mathematics in Engineering, Science and Aerospace. He is a recipient of the 15th Anniversary Outstanding Contribution to Energy Risk Award and the Pioneer Quant Honor by the Energy Risk Magazine.