CISDM Advisory Board and Affiliated Members

Mila Getmansky Sherman

Director, CISDM · Fuller and Meehan Endowed Professor of Finance, Isenberg School of Management, UMass Amherst

Professor Mila Getmansky Sherman is Fuller and Meehan Endowed Professor of Finance at the Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst. Her research specializes in empirical asset pricing, hedge funds, performance of investment trading strategies, financial institutions, systemic risk, ecological finance, ESG, gender in finance, and system dynamics. She received a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering and a Minor in Economics from MIT and a Ph.D. degree in Management from the MIT Sloan School of Management. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the MIT Lab for Financial Engineering before joining UMass Amherst.

Professor Getmansky Sherman is the director of the Center for International Securities and Derivatives Markets (CISDM) at UMass Amherst, whose goal is to facilitate research in alternative investments, geopolitical risk, international and derivative markets, and to promote interactions between the academic and business communities. Her work has been published in several journals including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Financial Analysts Journal, Environmental Research Communications, and the Journal of Investment Management. She is the current president of AFFECT (Academic Female Finance Committee) of the American Finance Association and has participated in numerous conference organizing committees including the American Finance Association, Western Finance Association, Financial Management Association, SFS Cavalcade, and the European Financial Association.

She has served as the editor of the Journal of Alternative Investments and Associate Editor of Data Science in Science and the Quarterly Journal of Finance. She is a recipient of numerous awards and grants from the Q-Group, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inquire-Europe, and the National Science Foundation, and a recipient of the College Outstanding Research Award. Before joining UMass Amherst, she worked in the quantitative research group at Deutsche Asset Management in New York. She teaches courses in corporate finance, financial modeling, and alternative investments in the MBA, Master of Finance, and undergraduate programs. She has had numerous government appointments and affiliations, serving as a Visiting Scholar at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. She was a contractor at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and an Expert Financial Economist with the SEC. She is currently on the Managed Funds Association (MFA) academic advisory council and on the AIF Global Academic board.

Gary Cameron

Deputy Chief Investment Officer, Garda

Mr. Cameron is a Deputy Chief Investment Officer at Garda and the head of the firm's New York office. He is a member of Garda's Office of the CIO and Investment Committee. He joined Garda in 2016 as a portfolio manager with over 25 years of experience trading and managing fixed income businesses in New York, London, and Tokyo, with a primary focus on interest rate derivative trading.

Before joining Garda, he spent more than 18 years at JP Morgan, most recently as their global head of USD interest rate swaps, with prior leadership of USD rate trading for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Previously, he was the executive head of a proprietary trading group at JP Morgan and managed core European swaps trading before the European Monetary Union. He started his career in the middle office for HSBC before joining its interest rate derivatives team in New York and Tokyo.

Mr. Cameron holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Kristen Walters

Chief Risk Officer & Operating Executive

Kristen Walters is a seasoned Chief Risk Officer and operating executive with over 35 years of experience across global banks, asset managers, and asset owners. She has held senior leadership roles at BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and Natixis Investment Managers, with deep expertise spanning public and private markets, investment oversight, enterprise risk management, and capital markets technology. She is recognized for building and transforming risk functions — including establishing independent CRO capabilities at large global institutions — and for advising boards, CIOs, and senior leadership on investment strategy, portfolio performance, and risk governance across a broad range of asset classes and fund structures.

Kristen is the North American CEO of APTimum, a European risk analytics and consulting firm implementing asset allocation and risk optimization solutions for buy-side firms. She also serves as Senior Advisor, Institutional Investor Risk at the Global Association of Risk Professionals, and as Senior Advisor at Agilion Systems, a technology, risk intelligence, and strategic advisory firm. She teaches governance, behavioral finance, organizational behavior, and risk culture at Columbia University, and is an Advisory Board member of UMass Amherst's Center for International Securities and Derivatives Markets (CISDM), where she guest lectures on alternative markets and oversees student-led research.

She previously held Chief Risk Officer roles at the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Natixis Investment Managers, and senior risk leadership roles at BlackRock and Goldman Sachs. She has advised regulators including the SEC and Federal Reserve, serving on the CFTC's Market Risk Advisory Committee, and is a recognized thought leader with numerous publications on risk management and regulatory policy. She began her career as a banking regulator at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and has also held risk management roles at PIMCO, Barclays Capital, and KPMG. Kristen holds a BBA (Honors) from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MBA (Distinction) from Babson College.

Ajay Mehra

Chief Investment Officer, Foresight Global Investors, Inc.

Ajay currently serves as the CIO of Foresight Global Investors, Inc., an 11-year-old global-equities-focused money management firm based in NY. Prior to founding Foresight, Ajay served as Managing Director and Head of Equities at Salient Partners, where he created and managed the firm's global equity strategy. Dr. Mehra also served as Managing Director and Head of Manager and Fund Research at UBS, where he rebuilt the firm's manager and fund selection platform and advised on over $300 billion in assets. Previously, as a Partner and Portfolio Manager at private equity firm Columbus Nova, Dr. Mehra co-managed a global macro fund and a long-biased global equity fund.

Prior to that, Dr. Mehra was Managing Director and Head of Equity Research for State Street Research, where he was the lead portfolio manager for a Health Sciences fund (selected as the Lipper Best Health Sciences Fund 2003 and 2004) and a Large-Cap fund. Dr. Mehra first started managing institutional money at Columbia Management Group, where he was a Senior Vice President and Portfolio Manager covering the Media, Telecom, Consumer, and Healthcare sectors. He started his Wall Street career at Morgan Stanley, where he was the firm's ranked Consumer Products analyst. Before coming to Wall Street, he was Assistant Professor of Strategic Management at West Virginia University's College of Business and Economics.

Dr. Mehra holds a B.S. and M.B.A. from Panjab University in Chandigarh, India, and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts, where his doctoral dissertation was selected as a finalist for the Best Dissertation award by the Academy of Management and was subsequently published as a book. He has also published numerous papers on company strategy and industry analysis in leading academic journals such as the Strategic Management Journal and the Journal of Management, among others.

Jerry Hong

Alternative Investments Executive; former Head of Portfolio Management & Trading, ZAIS Group

Jerry Hong is an alternative investments executive with over three decades of expertise spanning institutional trading, large-scale portfolio management, and structured products, with a primary focus on complex derivatives. He spent 10 years running Portfolio Management and Trading at ZAIS Group, during which assets under management surged from $50 million to over $12 billion. ZAIS achieved industry-wide acclaim, including Deal of the Year in 1999 and Fixed Income Hedge Fund of the Year in 2006, and was an active and successful participant in the historic “Big Short” market navigation of 2008.

Prior to his decade at ZAIS, Mr. Hong built a foundational career in global currency derivatives trading. He served as Vice President of Currency Derivatives Trading at Merrill Lynch, following three years at Citibank, which maintained the #1 global ranking by Euromoney during his tenure. After a highly successful institutional career, he retired from active trading in 2009 to pivot into the private sector. In the years since, he has managed a sophisticated portfolio of private business ventures, direct private equity placements, and hedge fund investments.

Mr. Hong graduated in 1993 from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Isenberg School of Management, with a Bachelor of Science in Finance.

Steven Novakovic

Managing Director, Educational Programs, CAIA Association

Steven Novakovic is the Managing Director, Educational Programs at CAIA Association. In this role he leads the creation, development, implementation, and execution of the charter, certificate, and other professional development programs offered by CAIA Association. Steven joined CAIA Association in 2022 and has been a Charterholder since 2011. Prior to CAIA Association, he was a faculty member at Ithaca College in Ithaca, NY, where he taught a variety of finance courses, including alternative investments. Before entering academia, he worked at his alma mater, Cornell University (B.S. 2004, MPS 2006), in the Office of University Investments.

Chuck McQuaid

Private Investor; Co-Founder & former Chief Investment Officer, Columbia Wanger Asset Management

Mr. Charles McQuaid worked as a securities analyst and equity portfolio manager for 40 years. From 2003 to 2013, he served as President and Chief Investment Officer of Columbia Wanger Asset Management, LLC, as well as President of the Columbia Acorn Investment Trust and Lead Portfolio Manager of the Columbia Acorn Fund. From 1992 to 2003, Chuck was Director of Research at Wanger Asset Management and co-manager of the Acorn Fund. Prior to co-founding Columbia Wanger, he was an Analyst at Harris Associates, beginning in 1978.

Chuck currently serves as a Trustee of The Morton Arboretum. Mr. McQuaid earned a B.B.A. from the University of Massachusetts and an M.B.A. in Finance from the University of Chicago.

Kathryn Kaminski

Chief Research Strategist & Portfolio Manager, AlphaSimplex

As Chief Research Strategist of AlphaSimplex, Dr. Kaminski conducts applied research, leads strategic research initiatives, and focuses on portfolio construction and risk management, as well as product development. She is a member of the Investment Committee and also serves as a co-portfolio manager of certain funds advised by AlphaSimplex.

Dr. Kaminski joined AlphaSimplex in 2018 after serving as a visiting scientist at the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering. Prior to this, she held portfolio management positions as a director of investment strategies at Campbell and Company and as a senior investment analyst at RPM, a CTA fund of funds.

Dr. Kaminski co-authored the book Trend Following with Managed Futures: The Search for Crisis Alpha (2014). Her research and industry commentary have been published in a wide range of industry publications as well as academic journals, and she is a contributory author for both the CAIA and CFA reading materials. She has been a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and has taught at the Stockholm School of Economics and the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology, KTH.

Dr. Kaminski earned an S.B. in Electrical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Operations Research from MIT, where her doctoral research focused on stochastic processes, stopping rules, and investment heuristics. She is a Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Charterholder and began her career in the investment industry in 2008.

Neil Moriarty

Co-Head, Global Fixed Income & Senior Portfolio Manager

Neil Moriarty is Co-Head of the Global Fixed Income team and a Senior Portfolio Manager, with nearly four decades of experience in the investment industry. In his current role, he is responsible for managing Multi-Sector and related investment strategies and has extensive experience leading investment teams and working with institutional clients.

Neil began his career in 1987 and has held senior investment, trading, and research roles at MacKay Shields, Aberdeen Asset Management, Deutsche Asset Management, Cypress Capital Management, Chase Securities, and Paine Webber. Over the course of his career, his responsibilities have included portfolio management, investment strategy, team leadership, and oversight of a broad range of fixed income investments.

Neil earned a BA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He brings to his board service extensive experience in leadership, financial markets, organizational decision-making, and fiduciary responsibility, and is committed to applying that experience in support of the organization and its mission.

Michael Philipp

Managing Partner, Ambata Capital Partners

Mr. Michael Philipp is a Managing Partner of Ambata Capital Partners, a merchant bank that seeks to develop businesses as a positive force for change for the people, communities, and environments in which they operate, and to advance sustainability as a core competency. Michael has over 25 years of experience as a senior banking executive and was a member of the Group Executive Board of Credit Suisse from 2005 to 2008, as well as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Credit Suisse Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

From 1995 to 2002, Michael helped build the investment bank at Deutsche Bank. From 2000 to 2002, he was Global Head of Asset Management and a member of the Board of Managing Directors, responsible for the Middle East and Africa. Prior to joining Deutsche Bank, Michael spent over a decade at the forefront of the rapidly expanding global futures and options industry. At Goldman Sachs (1982 to 1990), he held a variety of positions in the Fixed Income and Futures Services departments; and at Merrill Lynch (1990 to 1995), he was Global Head of Futures and Options.

Mr. Philipp is also a board member of Bhutan Foundation and Bhutan for Life, and serves on the National Council of the World Wildlife Fund (US). Michael has a BA and MBA from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts, with his wife, Sherry.

Joanne Hill

Managing Partner, Bear Creek Advisor

Joanne has over 30 years of experience in leadership roles in investment strategy at investment banks and asset managers, with a focus on index and quantitative products, derivatives, and risk management. She currently serves as Managing Partner at investment consultant Bear Creek Advisor and as Chief Advisor for Research and Strategy at Vest Financial, a fund manager specializing in option-based investments. She is also a Managing Director at SEDA Experts, an expert witness firm specializing in financial services. Prior to these roles, she was Head of Institutional Investment Strategy at ProShares and spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs, where she was a Managing Director leading global equity index and derivatives research and advising institutional investors on index and risk management strategies.

She is a recipient of the 2023 etf.com Lifetime Achievement Award and the William F. Sharpe Indexing Lifetime Achievement Award. She was one of the ten inaugural recipients of the Top Women in Asset Management Awards (Money Management Executive, 2019). Joanne is a co-author of A Comprehensive Guide to Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), published in 2026 by the CFA Institute Research Foundation, and has published extensively on quantitative investment topics, index products, and derivatives.

Joanne is on the Advisory Board of the Jacobs Levy Equity Management Center for Quantitative Financial Research at The Wharton School and is an Adjunct Professor at the College of Charleston, where she also serves on the Advisory Board of the Student Investment Program. She was a Founding Member and the first Co-President of Women in ETFs, which has grown in 12 years into a global networking organization with over 10,000 members. She recently completed a five-year term on the Board of Governors of the CFA Institute, where she chaired the People and Culture Committee, and has served as Chair and board member of the CFA Institute Research Foundation and for 12 years on the Board of the “Q” Group (Institute for Quantitative Finance).

Prior to her career on Wall Street, she was on the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She holds a Ph.D. in Finance and an M.B.A. from Syracuse University, an M.A. in International Affairs from George Washington University, and graduated with honors from American University's School of International Service.