LIN  WILLIAM  CONG

Lin William Cong is the Rudd Family Professor of Management (endowed faculty chair by the Rudd Family Foundation) and Tenured Professor of Finance at the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University SC Johnson College of Business. He is also the founding faculty director for the FinTech Initiative at Cornell and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Prior to joining Cornell, he was an assistant professor of Finance and Ph.D. advisor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and faculty member at the Center for East Asian Studies. He is formerly a Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellow, a Poets & Quants World Best Business School Professor, a 2022 Top Quant Professor, a doctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies, and the George Shultz Scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Cong serves as a Finance Editor for the Management Science, and as associate editors for the Journal of Financial Intermediation, Journal of Corporate Finance, and the Journal of Banking and Finance, among other editorial roles. He has advised FinTech organizations and investment firms such as Wall Street Blockchain Alliance, Blackrock, Dfinity (incubator), and Chainlink, as well as government and regulatory agencies such as the New York State Department of Financial Services, Bank of Canada, and Asset Management Association of China. He has also been consulted for prominent FinTech litigation cases and invited to advise initiatives at the Department of Justice to fight against manipulations in cryptocurrency markets. Cong is a member of multiple professional organizations such as the American Economic Association, European Finance Association, and the Econometric Society. 

   Cong researches on financial economics, information economics, FinTech and Economic Data Science, Entrepreneurship, and China. His academic interests include financial innovation, mechanism and information design, blockchains, cryptocurrencies, digital economy, real options, financial policy and markets in China, machine learning, AI, and alternative data. His recent work has focused on the intersection of technology, data science, and finance. His research has been featured in top academic journals and media such as Bloomberg, CNN, VOX, and Washington Post, and has been recognized with a number of accolades including over 40 conference best paper prizes and competitive grants. He has also been invited to speak and teach at hundreds of world-renowned universities, venture funds, technology firms, investment and trading shops, and government agencies such as IMF, Ant Financial, SEC, and federal reserve banks.  

   Cong earned a Ph.D. in Finance and a MS in Statistics from Stanford University, where he served as the president of Ph.D. students association, received the Asian American Award for Graduate Leadership, and was recognized with the Lieberman Fellowship for outstanding contributions in research, teaching, and university service. He also holds dual degrees from Harvard University where he graduated summa cum laude and top in the Physics department, with an A.M. in Physics, an A.B. in Math & Physics, a minor in Economics, and a language citation in French.
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   Cong is a native of Shenyang, China, and has lived in Singapore and sojourned in Japan and the UK. Cong enjoys Chinese calligraphy, reading, sports, fitness, guitar, as well as learning French and Japanese. Cong is also passionate about education, China-U.S. relations, technology innovations, and integrating fundamental valuation, quantitative investing, and financial technology in asset management, for which he created the course "Quantimental Investment" while at the University of Chicago.