MSFE program appoints new director

Morton N. Lane has been appointed as director of the new Master of Science in Financial Engineering Program (MSFE), a joint program of the Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering in the College of Engineering and the Department of Finance in the College of Business at Illinois.

Lane brings a wealth of practical and intellectual experience to the program, having applied financiall engineering techniques to a variety of different markets. For the past fifteen years he has run his own consulting practice offering advice in the securitization of (re)insurance risk and in risk management techniques. During that period, he has had joint ventures and/or partnered with others including Sedgwick Insurance Brokers and Gerling Global Reinsurance. He also maintains an SEC broker-dealer designation.

Prior to his period advising on Reinsurance and Securitization structures, Lane was actively involved in the development of Exchange-traded financial derivatives. He has previously held management positions as president of Discount Corporation of New York Futures, head of the Commodities Division at Bear Stearns and president of Lind Waldock. He was a member of both the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and The Chicago Board of Trade and served on many of their important committees.

Lane has co-authored several important books--The Treasury Bond Basis (1990) and Eurodollar Futures and Options (1991)--each of which have had multiple editions and been translated into other languages. More recently, he edited Alternative Risk Strategies which received honorable mention as the runner-up in the 2002 Kulp-Wright Risk Management Book of the Year.

Lane serves as the non-actuarial director on the Casualty Actuarial Society and received the Casualty Actuarial Society’s Hachemeister Prize in 2000.   He also serves on the advisory committee of several hedge funds and has served on the board of Select Re and certain reinsurance subsidiaries of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

Lane received a bachelor of science in mathematics, economics and statistics from Birmingham University in the UK and his PhD from the University of Texas in business administration, mathematics and computer science. He has taught at the London Graduate School of Business Studies, as an adjunct professor at the University of Chicago and is currently a visiting adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales.

Prospective students can meet Dr. Lane and to learn more about the MSFE program at an information session will be held on Wednesday, February 24 at 4:30 p.m. in the Illini Union, Rm. 215.

The MSFE program started accepting applications in December 2009, and will enroll its first class for the fall semester 2010. Application information can be found at http://msfe.illinois.edu, and all materials must be received by April 15, 2010.
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Contact: Sabria Kushad, Master of Science in Financial Engineering Program, 217/244-9540.

Amy Holland, Department of Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering, College of Engineering, 217/244-5703.

If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, Engineering Communications Office, 217/244-7716, editor.