Early Career Profiles: Recent bachelors-level graduates in the mathematical sciences

Robert Frey
Managing Director
Renaissance Technologies

Robert Frey holds both Stony Brook B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Mathematics and Statistics.  “My whole education took place part-time.  It took me 12 years.   I was a nontraditional student in every way, from a family in which no one in the previous generation had gone to college.”

During his 12 years of part-time study, Robert was simultaneously moving ahead in the business world.  He was initially a management analyst for the IRS, then an operations researcher for Doubleday Book Co. and later for European-American Bank; on the side, he started his own consulting firm.

At the time he wrote his dissertation, he was head of the 25-person operations research/artificial intelligence group at the Harris Corporation.  Among other projects at Harris, Frey led an analysis of how to design a military airplane so that automated testing equipment could diagnose faults in complex electronic systems.  A new generation of Navy fighter planes was developed under the guidelines Frey proposed.  After his Ph.D., he moved to Morgan Stanley’s trading operation where he helped build a mathematically based trading system.  He then became a founding partner of Kepler Financial Management, Ltd., which ran a computerized equities fund.  Kepler was purchased by Renaissance Technologies Corp., one of the country’s most successful hedge fund managers.  At Renaissance, he has worked on broadening Renaissance’s products into more traditional areas of investment management.

“I like the fact that I can change fields and rapidly become deeply involved in new careers.  With the proper quantitative background, you develop powerful cognitive facilities.  I have learned to pick stuff up fast.”