Prof. Dr. Erich Walter Farkas
I come from a quantitative background, with numbers and measurements, but in the end that is only one view of reality. Reality is much more complex. Especially in (financial) risk management, it is important to look at the big picture. Holistic approaches are the way to go.
Biography
Walter Farkas is a Professor of Quantitative Finance at the Department of Finance at the University of Zurich (UZH) and an Associate Faculty member of the Department of Mathematics of ETH Zurich. Prof. Farkas is also the program director of the Master of Science in Quantitative Finance, a specialized degree jointly offered by the UZH and ETH since 2003.
He is member of the Executive Education Board of the University of Zurich, heading its Certificate of Advanced Studies (CAS) in Risk Management for Banking and Finance, and is the Director of Teaching Center of the Department of Finance of UZH.
Walter is a Faculty member of the Swiss Finance Institute and also a Board member and founder of the Swiss Risk Association, a non-profit organization and an open forum for facilitating the dialog on risk management, after serving for eight years, 2013-2021, as one of the Co-presidents.
Before joining the University of Zurich, Walter conducted research and taught in Munich, Regensburg, Jena, Mainz, and Bucharest. He holds a Habilitation from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, a doctorate from Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, and both a Master of Science and a Licentiate degree in Mathematics from the University of Bucharest. He also completed a Certificate of Advanced Studies for Board Members at Bern-Rochester. In addition, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Bucharest University of Economic Studies.
Research Interests
Mathematical Finance, Quantitative Risk Management, Volatility Modeling, Risk Measures, and Option Pricing.
- In particular Walter is one of the principal researchers in the project “Data-Driven Financial Risk and Regulatory Reporting (DaDFiR3)” funded by the SNSF-BRIDGE, www.dadfir3.ch
- In addition, he is co-initiator of RiskON, a two-day hackathon hosted at the Department of Finance, www.riskon.ch
- He is also co-initiator and host of the first Finance Roundtable 2025 at UZH, where a closed group of CFOs will be discussing AI, Big Data, and their impact on investment management