Emanuel Derman Scientist

Emanuel Derman is a South African-born academic, businessman and writer. He is best known as a quantitative analyst, and author of the book My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance.He is a co-author of Black-Derman-Toy model, one of the first interest-rate models, and the Derman-Kani local volatility or implied tree model, a model consistent with the volatility smile.Derman, who first came to the U.S. at age 20, in 1964, is currently a professor at Columbia University and Director of its program in financial engineering, and is also the Head of Risk and a partner at Prisma Capital Partners, a fund of funds. His book My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance, published by Wiley in September 2004, was one of Business Week's top ten books of the year for 2004. In 2011, he published "Models.Behaving.Badly," a book contrasting financial models with the theories of hard science, and also containing some autobiographical material.

Personal facts

Birth place	Cape Town
Residence	New York City
Education	Columbia University University of Cape Town
Known for	Local volatility Black–Derman–Toy model Financial Modelers' Manifesto