NUMERATI® PARTNERS - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Affiliated Expert, Virtual Reality & Augmented Reality

Connor DeFanti, PhD is a Numerati® Partners affiliated expert focusing on Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), and graduated with a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences NYU. Connor's research focuses on virtual, augmented, and mixed reality solutions, primarily relating to their social aspects, including systems design for shared VR experiences, understanding social interactions in VR, and envisioning the future of these systems. He is particularly interested in investigating how the new generation of hardware can improve the fields of education and games. Prior to working in virtual reality, Connor studied mathematics and computer graphics, graduating from California Institute of Technology (Caltech) with a Bachelor's degree. He has had the privilege of working with graphics pioneers such as Ken Perlin, Al Barr, and Lance Williams.

Job Titles:

• Advisor
• Chief Scientist
• Adjunct Instructor of Applied Mathematics at Courant
• Adjunct Professor of Econometrics and Statistics at University
• Chief Scientist and Co - Managing Member
• First Scientist
• Managing Director at Swiss Re

David K.A. Mordecai is Chief Scientist and Co-Managing Member of Numerati® Partners LLC, which coordinates a data analytics and technology development ecosystem, with the mission of advancing and fostering the next generation of scalable data-intensive risk and liability management enterprises. David Mordecai has served as an adjunct instructor of applied mathematics at Courant, as well as an Adjunct Professor and an active member of the working group for the NYU Center for Data Science (NYUCDS) at its inception. In this capacity, he mentors students across various NYU divisions, including Courant, NYUCDS, Stern, Tisch ITP (Interactive Technology Masters Program) and NYU Tandon School of Engineering. In 2014, he was appointed Course Director to lead the NYUCDS Capstone graduate applied research program in its inaugural year. Between 2012 and 2015, he held a joint appointment as Senior Research Scholar for Computational Economics of Commerce, Law and Geo-Politics at the NYU Stern Graduate School of Business. Dr. Mordecai also serves on the Advisory Committee of the Institute for Data Science at Durham University, England. David Mordecai serves as Chair of the Nanotechnology Committee, Co-Chair of the Space Law Committee and Vice-Chair of the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for the American Bar Association Science & Technology Law Section. He also serves as a technical advisor on the Uniform Law Commission Study Committee on Event Data Recorders in Cars, which is studying the need for and feasibility of uniform or model state legislation concerning automotive event data recorders and vehicle-generated data. In 2019, he was appointed technical advisor to study committees commissioned by the Uniform Law Committee (ULC) on Automotive Event Data Recorders, in 2020, on Mitigation of Public Health Emergency Business Disruptions, and in 2022 on Use of Tokens or Other Similar Products in Real Property Transactions. David has served as an advisor on systemic risk issues to the Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the US Treasury, and the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and as an advisor on hedge fund valuation issues to the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). He coauthored the second working paper published by the Treasury Department's Office of Financial Research, entitled Forging Best Practices in Risk Management. He has also been a member of the Investment Advisory Committee of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). He is the founding Co-Chair of the International Association of Financial Engineers' (IAFE) Liquidity Risk Committee, and has actively served on the Steering Committee of the IAFE's Investor Risk Working Group on hedge fund and CTA disclosure issues, as well as the Advisory Board. David was the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Risk Finance (JRF ca.1999), a quarterly peer-reviewed research periodical, which addresses topics in financial risk intermediation. He remains a senior member of JRF's Advisory Board subsequent to its sale by the original publishers Euromoney Institutional Investor to Emerald Publications. He has published numerous articles on topics including hedge fund strategies, structured credit, and weather and insurance derivatives. He has also served on the advisory committee for Chartered Alternative Investment Analysts (CAIA) Association, and on the editorial board of the Journal of Alternative Investments. In addition, he has been a guest lecturer at Columbia University, at the Graduate Business School, the Engineering/Operations Research Division, as well as the School for International and Public Affairs.

Job Titles:

• Affiliated Expert
• Researcher at United Nations Global Pulse
• Science Advisor, Remote Sensing & Imaging

Joseph Aylett-Bullock,PhD is a Science Advisor for Remote Sensing and Imaging to Numerati® Partners LLC focusing on remote sensing and imaging, and an affiliated research advisor at RiskEcon® Lab for Decision Metrics @ Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences NYU, having also formerly served for over two years concurrently as an Affiliated Expert with Numerati® Partners and an Industry Research Associate at RiskEcon® Lab. Joseph is currently a Researcher at United Nations Global Pulse, an innovation initiative of the United Nations (UN) to harness emerging technologies for humanitarian development and part of the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General. Through his research at UN Global Pulse, Joseph has worked on projects involving the UN Department for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs (UNDPPA), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN Peacekeeping (UNP), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and UNOSAT, the UN's satellite program. His work at UN has included: developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods for automating satellite image analysis for mapping refugee camps, damage assessment and flood detection; helping UN field missions understand political sentiment in social media posts; assessing the risks of automated text generation; and investigating the human rights implications of AI. Joseph has spoken widely on the use of AI in the humanitarian sector, and has served as Track Chair for the AI for Social Good workshop at NeurIPS, the most widely attended AI conference, and Senior Program Chair for the Social Impact Track at AAAI 2020. Joseph recently completed his doctorate at the Institute for Particle Physics Phenomenology, the UK national particle physics research laboratory and part of Durham University, working on approximating high precision calculations for complex particle collision processes at CERN using Machine Learning. He is also an affiliate of the Institute for Data Science at Durham University, where he conducts research on applications of AI to a variety of real-world problems. In his prior role as a Numerati® Partners Affiliated Expert, Joseph participated in technical testing of remote sensing and imaging technologies. As an Industry Research Associate at RiskEcon® Lab, he co-advised lab team research of machine learning algorithms across image recognition and segmentation domains. Joseph has also consulted for private industry, working primarily with insurance and medical sector participants, including developing a new methodology for automatic X-Ray image segmentation now being used in production.

Job Titles:

• Chief Data Scientist and Co - Managing Member
• Chief Data Scientist Co - Founder
• Independent Director, Nominating Committee Chair and Audit Committee Member of the Credit Suisse Funds

Samantha Kappagoda is Chief Data Scientist and Co-Managing Member of Numerati® Partners LLC, which coordinates a data analytics and technology development ecosystem, with the mission of advancing and fostering the next generation of scalable data-intensive risk and liability management enterprises. Samantha currently serves as an Independent Director, Nominating Committee Chair and Audit Committee Member of the Credit Suisse Funds, which are comprised of closed-end funds (NYSE: DHY and CIK) and open-end funds investing in commodity, high yield and credit strategies. She has over thirty cumulative years of not-for-profit governance experience and also serves on the Business Board of the Governing Council at the University of Toronto, a $C4 billion annual revenue public research institution. Samantha is a frequently invited speaker on governance topics including AI and data-related risks at conferences and events for corporate and fund board directors. Events and organizations include National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), Character of the Corporation, Private Directors Association, DCRO Risk Governance Institute, NYU Law PCCE Directors' Academy, Independent Directors Council, and Mutual Fund Directors Forum. Samantha is a Visiting Scholar at Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences NYU, advising research activities at RiskEcon® Lab for Decision Metrics, a research lab established at Courant Institute in 2011, to foster industry/academic collaboration and develop experimental testbeds applying a range of computational and analytical methods to high-dimensional datasets from innovative sources. Samantha serves on the American Bar Association SciTech Section as (i) Vice-Chair of the Big Data Committee since 2022, (ii) Vice-Chair of the Internet-of-Things Committee since 2022, and (iii) Vice-Chair of the Insurance Technology and Risk Committee from 2019-2022. In 2020, she served as a technical advisor to the Uniform Law Commission Study Committee for Public Health Emergency Authorities, which studied the need for and feasibility of one or more uniform state laws addressing the authority of state governments to respond to epidemics, pandemics and other public health emergencies. Previously, she served for over thirteen years as Senior Economist at Caxton Associates LP, a hedge fund with approximately $15 billion of assets under management, investing in global commodities, currencies, fixed income (sovereign and corporate credit) and equities. She was a key member of Caxton Global, the firm's flagship global macro fund, where her analysis informed positioning and pricing for real-time trading decisions, and asset allocation. Her macroeconomic and demographic analytics and development of proprietary econometric models employing high frequency financial market data combined with global economic data and central bank and related policy actions, guided the firm's senior decision makers. Prior to working in the financial markets, Samantha was employed as an Economist in the Operations Evaluation Department at The World Bank in Washington, D.C. Her responsibilities included evaluating structural adjustment lending programs, with a primary focus on building computable general equilibrium models, in order to analyze the bank's loan portfolio across disparate emerging market economies. Samantha pursues broader research interests by serving as a senior editorial advisory board member of The Journal of Risk Finance (JRF), an Emerald Publications journal which provides a rigorous forum for the publication, both by academics and practitioners, of theoretical and empirical research related to the financing of risk, with a long-standing focus on issues of market convergence. She was originally the founding Managing Editor of JRF in 1999, initially published by Euromoney Institutional Investor, before its successful sale to its current publisher. She previously served as Special Editor for Risk Management, for The Journal of Alternative Investments, also an Institutional Investor journal at its inception. Samantha received an M.B.A. in Analytic Finance and Statistics from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. She also holds an M.A. in Economics with concentrations in Industrial Organization and Monetary Economics from the University of Toronto and graduated with a B.Sc. (Honors) in Mathematics from Imperial College, London. Samantha is also currently a member of the Board of Directors of the Girl Scouts of Greater New York (GSGNY), focusing on the GSGNY portfolio of STEM programs. She previously served on the Board of Directors of Council for Economic Education, Glynwood Center for Regional Food and Farming, and Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, and the Leadership Council of Black Rock Forest Consortium. Her biography has been published in the Marquis' Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Finance and Business (formerly Who's Who in Finance and Industry), Who's Who of Emerging Leaders, Who's Who of American Women, and Canadian Who's Who (Grey House Publishing). In 2013, she was honored by the Girl Scouts of Greater New York (GSGNY) as a Woman of Distinction, for her activities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Samantha has worked in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., Toronto, Ottawa and London, and has also resided in Singapore, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.