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Business & Finance

From Startup to Fintech, Stevens Covers the Financial Landscape

Digital technology has transformed the global business landscape — and Stevens is helping businesses and consumers understand how.

Powered by the leading-edge Hanlon Financial Systems Center’s computing tools and our NSF-supported Center for Research toward Advancing Financial Technologies (CRAFT) collaborations with business, academia and industry, we are developing tools to enhance, regulate and understand high-speed and high-frequency trading; predict equities movements; stress-test markets in order to avert potential contagion or collapse; and optimize risk management.

Our faculty also conduct important research to understand the human side of business decisions and market movements, including explorations of bias, leadership, gender equity, labor force participation, cryptocurrency, human-computer interaction and the use of AI in business and finance.


A Financial Innovation Hub

Stevens powers the future of finance through specialized initiatives that create pioneering fintech research, accelerate regional economic growth and advance financial systems.

CRAFT Logo

FIRST IN FINANCE SCIENCE: CRAFT

Stevens creates and co-leads the Center for Research toward Advancing Financial Technologies (CRAFT), the first NSF-supported center to study the science of finance — with significant input from the financial industry

Stevens School of Business Dean Gregory Prastacos speaks during the NJ FAST announcement

SPARKING ENTREPRENEURSHIP: NJ FAST

Stevens co-founds new regional startup hub with one of the nation’s largest venture-capital platforms and the state of New Jersey

The Hanlon Financial Systems Lab with computer monitors and screens.

RESOURCES: The Hanlon Financial Systems Center

The metro NYC region’s most robust financial lab enables leading-edge research and scholarship

AI and the Business Landscape

As artificial intelligence rapidly transforms the business world, Stevens researchers work to both hardness AI’s power and understand its limitations

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Can AI Be a Good Teammate?

Stevens professor Bei Yan explores the potential for intelligent assistants to improve work

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Are AI's Decisions Fair?

Professor Violet Chen works with Carnegie Mellon to propose new tools to ensure AI-powered decisions are socially equitable.

Man standing in front of board full of post-it notes

Brainstorming: A Positive Use Case for AI

A new AI tool co-developed by Stevens and other universities rocket-fuels ideas by scanning written text


Monitoring the Markets

From crypto and FOREX to stock moves, Stevens research spans the financial landscape

Study Finds Stock Values Increase When Firms Appoint Black CEOs

How Diverse Leadership Increases Value Instantly

Stevens researcher Ann Murphy discovers corporate valuations surge shortly after appointing Black leadership

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The Crypto Conundrum

Sign of the times? Bitcoin prices are susceptible to price changes driven by, yes, social media posts

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Listening to the Silence

Insiders’ stock moves (or lack of them) can be a powerful signal a company is about to surge, a Stevens researcher finds

Head and shoulders portrait of Justine Herve with the hedges and a lawn as the background.

The Human Side of Economics

Professor Justine Hervé explores the working people and lives behind cold numbers — from that familiar post-lunch lag in productivity to the double-edged sword of a pay raise and the potential for AI to replace jobs

Bank of America is committed to advancing technology in a safe and responsible way. Through CRAFT, we gain the benefit of industry and academic working together on advanced industry trends and risks that benefit our clients and customers.
Graeme MuirheadHead of Technology Transformation, Bank of America

Focus On: Leadership & Corporate Governance

Stevens researchers dive into the effects of both positive and negative leadership styles, personalities and governance

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Are Bold CEOs Good for a Company?

Star-power CEOs get sued or scrutinized more often, finds a Stevens researcher — forcing their companies to tighten the financial ship

Picture of employee being told no by his boss.

The ‘Ripple Effect’ of Bad Bosses

Stevens research uncovers links between poor supervision and workplace performance

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Workplace Favoritism: An Unexpected Benefit

Everyone knows bosses play favorites; sometimes, Stevens researchers found, that still improves team productivity


Trader using phone to check stock markets

Is DeFi the Future of ETFs?

Decentralized finance, or DeFi, is revolutionizing trading. Now two Stevens business faculty are exploring one iteration of DeFi, an automated system that could transform the way ETFs function and are traded.

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Untangling the Economics of Retirement

Stevens professor Joelle Saad-Lessler explores the ways America takes care of its citizens after they exit the work force

IBM looks forward to participating in CRAFT to advance the application of modern transformational technologies including generative AI and quantum computing to the financial services industry.
Dr. Kumar BhaskaranIBM

Fintech Research Thought Leaders

George Calhoun (gcalhoun)

George Calhoun

Director, Hanlon Financial Systems Center; Managing Director, CRAFT

Steve Yang (syang14)

Steve Yang

Director, CRAFT

Joelle Saad-Lessler (jsaadles)

Joelle Saad-Lessler

Labor economics, retirement, immigration

Stefano Bonini (sbonini)

Stefano Bonini

Venture capital, corporate finance

Justine Herve (jherve)

Justine Hervé

Labor economics, wage inequity

Suman Banerjee (sbanerj2)

Suman Banerjee

Corporate governance, leadership studies

Violet Chen (vchen3)

Violet Chen

AI and fairness

Howie Xu

Howie Xu

Leadership studies, workplace relationships

Ying Wu (ywu4)

Ying Wu

Currency, forex, ESG

Headshot of Zachary Feinstein

Zachary Feinstein

Fintech, AI and finance, decentralized finance

portrait of Bei Yan

Bei Yan

Social media, AI

Khaldoun Khashanah (kkhashan)

Khaldoun Khashanah

Algorithmic trading, financial engineering