The 32nd CAST GNY Annual Conference

The 32nd annual conference of CASTGNY serves as a platform, bringing together professionals from industry, finance, and academia to exchange ideas and drive progress. This year's conference theme delves into the dynamic intersection of AI, Robotics, ETF, New Energy, Biopharmaceuticals, Education, and more!

• Dr. Yitang Zhang 张益唐: Fellow of Academia Sinica in Taiwan; Professor of Mathematics @ the University of California, Santa Barbara
• Dr. Li Deng 邓力: Fellow of the Academy of Engineering of Canada; CAIO @ Vatic Investments
• Dr. Zhong-Ping Jiang 姜钟平: Fellow of Academia Europaea; Institute Professor @ NYU Tandon School of Engineering

• Dr. Yi Tang 汤漪 (Session Chiar & Moderator): Managing Director, Head Quant for XVA & Contingent Credit Trading, and for Commodities Trading @ Wells Fargo Securities
• Dr. Yunson Du 杜云松: Deputy Head of Sales & Trading @ SMBC Americas Division
• Dr. Kaifeng (Kevin) Chen 陈凯丰: Chief Economist and CIO of Horizon Financial
• Mr. Shengbei Guo 郭胜北: Founder and CEO of GSB Podium Advisors
• Ms. Yunqing (Kelly) Ye 叶蕴青: Portfolio Manager and Head of Research @ Decentral Park Capital

• Dr. Jizhong Xiao 肖继忠 (Session Chair & Moderator): Professor of Electrical Engineering @ the City College of New York
• Dr. Yi Guo 郭翌: Thomas E. Hattrick Chair Professor @ Stevens Institute of Technology
• Dr. Chen Feng 冯晨: Associate Professor @ NYU Tandon School of Engineering

• Dr. Lubo Zhou 周麓波: Vice President of Research, Development, and Engineering (VP of RD&E) @ Air Company
• Dr. Huaqion Shen 申华琼：CEO of NeuShen Therapeutics
• Dr. Amra Sabic-El-Rayess : Associate Professor of Practice in Organization and Leadership @ Teachers College, Columbia University
• Dr. Henan Cheng 程贺南 (Moderator): Deputy Director of the Center on Chinese Education @ Teachers College, Columbia University
• Ms. Zhuqian Zhou 周竹倩 (Session Chair): PhD Candidate @ Teachers College, Columbia University

Dr. Yitang Zhang is a reknown mathematician, a fellow of Academia Sinica in Taiwan, and a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In May 2013, Dr. Yitang Zhang proved a weaker form of the Twin Prime Conjecture. Without relying on unproven hypotheses, he discovered that there are infinitely many pairs of prime numbers with a difference of less than 70 million, making significant progress on the important issue of the Twin Prime Conjecture. Dr. Yitang Zhang was an invited speaker at the 2014 International Congress of Mathematicians and has received several prestigious awards, including the American Mathematical Society's 2014 Frank Nelson Cole Prize in Number Theory, the 2014 Rolf Schock Prize established by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the 2014 MacArthur Fellowship, the 2016 Qiushi Distinguished Scientist Award, and the 2018 Asian American Engineer of the Year Lifetime Achievement Award.

Dr. Li Deng is a reknown computer scientist, a fellow of the Academy of Engineering of Canada, an IEEE fellow, and the Chief AI Officer & Global Head of Machine Learning at Vatic Investments. He is recognized as one of the world's leading experts in AI, speech technology, and machine learning. Dr. Li Deng was previously the Chief Scientist of AI and Partner Research Manager at Microsoft. Over the 17 years at Microsoft, he founded the influential "Deep Learning Technology Center (DLTC)" which laid the foundation for Microsoft's great advancement in AI today. In 2017, Dr. Li Deng joined Citadel as the Chief AI Officer and Head of Machine Learning. He has been honored with numerous awards for his pioneering AI research, including the 2015 IEEE SPS Technical Achievement Award and the 2019 IEEE SPS Industry Leader Award.

Dr. Zhong-Ping Jiang is a reknown scientist in electrical and computer engineering. He is a fellow of Academia Europaea, an IEEE fellow, and an institute professor at New York University (NYU)'s Tandon School of Engineering. He is a key contributor to nonlinear small-gain theory. His research has great impact in computational and systems neuroscience, connected transportation, and cyber-physical-human systems. In 2023, he was listed in Stanford's List of World's Top 2% Scientists. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Queen Elizabeth II Fellowship Award from the Australian Research Council, the CAREER Award from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the JSPS Invitation Fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the Distinguished Overseas Chinese Scholar Award from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Dr. Yi Tang is a Managing Director at Wells Fargo Securities, responsible for XVA (Credit Valuation Adjustment), Structured Solutions Trading, and Commodities Trading. Previously, he served as a Managing Director at Morgan Stanley and as a team leader at Goldman Sachs. He co-authored a book on quantitative finance titled, "Quantitative Analysis, Derivatives Modeling, And Trading Strategies In the Presence of Counterparty Credit Risk for the Fixed-Income Market". He also served as the Co-Chair of the Peking University Alumni Association of Greater New York (PKUAAGNY).

Dr. Yunsong Du is the Deputy Head of Sales and Trading at the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) Americas Division. He joined the bank more than 25 years ago as a quant and then a trader. During his trading career, he has employed timely tail risk hedges and successfully avoided significant losses during many financial crises. As he takes on more management responsibility since 2008, he has led the business expansion by providing vision, taking important business initiatives, and also hiring and motivating talents. Recently his main interests are global portfolio trading book, electronic trading, and modern trading/booking systems.

Mr. Kaifeng Chen is currently the Chief Economist and Chief Investment Officer at Horizon Financial and a board member of Infint Acquisition Corporation (listed on NYSE), Australian Oilseeds Investments (listed on Nasdaq), and Capitan Investment Ltd. (listed on Toronto Stock Exchange). He is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at NYU, a guest speaker at Harvard University, Fordham University, Pace University, and IESE Business School, and an Editorial Advisory Board Member of the Global Commodity Applied Research Digest (GCARD) at JP Morgan Center for Commodities (JPMCC) at the University of Colorado Denver Business School.

Mr. Shengbei Guo is the founder and CEO of GSB Podium Advisors. He served as Deputy General Manager of Tianfeng Securities from 2019 to 2022. He was the Deputy General Manager of Huajing Securities from 2017 to 2019. He worked at CITIC Securities in Beijing from 2015 to 2017, serving as the head of Alternative Investment Group and the head of Stock Investment Group. He joined Morgan Stanley in 1992 and started his Wall Street investment career. He later joined Deutsche Bank as Managing Director responsible for proprietary trading. Later he set up GSB Podium Advisors in New York and served as CEO.

Ms. Yunqing Ye is a portfolio manager and head of research at Decentral Park Capital, a liquid venture fund specializing in digital asset investments. She invests in both liquid and early-stage deals across various crypto sectors, employing a thesis-driven approach supported by in-depth fundamental and quantitative analysis. Ms. Yunqing Ye has received numerous industry accolades and awards since entering the financial services industry in 2008. She is also a CFA® and has served on the board of CFA New York and co-chaired the Women in ETF Speakers’ Bureau committee.

Dr. Jizhong Xiao is currently Professor of Electrical Engineering at the City College of New York (CCNY/CUNY City College) and Professor of Computer Science at CUNY Graduate Center. He is the Director of CCNY Robotics Lab and Co-Founder of InnovBot LLC, a CUNY Spin-off company dedicated to R&D and commercialization of robotic and NDE technologies with application to the inspection of infrastructure and wind turbine blades. He has published more than 200 research articles in peer reviewed journals and conferences. He received the NSF CAREER Award in 2007, the CCNY Outstanding Mentoring Award in 2011, the Humboldt Research Fellowship in 2013~2015, and the Dean’s Award for Excellence in 2019.

Dr. Yi Guo is Thomas E. Hattrick Chair Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology. Her research interests include distributed cooperative control and micro/nano-robotics for biomedical applications. She has published over 150 journal and conference articles and serveral monographs on robotics and automation. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine. She also serves in ASME Dynamic Systems and Control Division (DSCD) Honors and Awards Committee, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Committee to Aid Reporting on Misconduct Concerns (CARES).

Dr. Chen Feng is an Associate Professor at NYU. He leads the AI4CE (pronounced at A-I-force) group to advance active and collaborative perception through multidisciplinary use-inspired research that originates from construction, manufacturing, and transportation domains. Dr. Chen Feng publishes in and reviews for prestigious AI/Robotics venues like CVPR/ICCV/ICRA/IROS, and he also serves as an associate editor for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L). Dr. Chen Feng is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award in 2023.

Dr. Lubo Zhou is the Vice President of Research, Development, and Engineering (VP of RD&E) at Air Company, a fast-growing carbon utilization technology and design start-up company that was named one of the Top10 startups to watch by Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN). The company has a patented technology that mimics photosynthesis to convert carbon dioxide into impurity-free alcohol, which can be used to make ultra-refined consumer products and jet fuel. Before joining Air Company, Dr. Lubo Zhou was the VP & CTO for Honeywell Performance Materials and Technologies Asia Pacific.

Dr. Huaqiong Shen is the CEO of NeuShen Therapeutics, a global biotech company for treating psychiatric and neurological disorders. Before founding NeuShen, she was the CEO of I-Mab Biopharma and successfully led the company to be listed on Nasdaq in 2020. Prior to I-Mab, Dr. Huaqiong Shen was the head of development of Janssen Pharmaceutical Company of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) China and the clinical lead at Eli Lilly & Co, Wyeth, and Pfizer.

Dr. Amra Sabic-El-Rayess is an associate professor of practice in organization and leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. She works on concrete ways to facilitate women’s social mobility through better financial inclusion and access to financial services. She has delivered over 100 invited lectures in more than 15 countries. She is the author of the highly acclaimed book titled, "The Cat I Never Named: A True Story of Love, War, and Survival" (Bloomsbury, 2020), for which she received President Joe Biden's letter saying, "I am inspired by the bravery and strength you have shown" and describing her as "the very idea of America" itself.

Dr. Henan Cheng is the deputy director of the Center on Chinese Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She has also been an adjunct professor in the Department of International and Transcultural Studies at Teachers College since 2012. Her primary research interests include international and comparative education, educational development and equity issues in China, especially issues related to education of ethnic minorities and children of migrants. Dr. Cheng’s publications on education of migrant children have been cited in national and international media outlets including Time Magazine, Huffington Post, Hechinger Report, and Reference News.

Ms. Zhuqian Zhou serves on the Board of Directors for the Chinese Association for Science and Technology, U.S.A., Greater New York (CAST-GNY), and is a Ph.D. candidate in Cognitive Science in Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is also a member of the Community on Smart Data and Digital Technology in Education, organized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Her research has published many journal and conference papers in the field of cognitive science, learning sciences, and education.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Campus Center @ NJIT, 150 Bleeker Street, Newark, United States