CFTC Economist

Naomi Boyd, , joined the Commission in 2005 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Finance at West Virginia University. She received her Ph.D. in Finance from George Washington University, Washington D.C. in 2009. Dr. Boyd previously served as a visiting professor and lecturer at the George Washington University and a lecturer at Texas Tech University. Her research involves the behavior of traders, the characterization of competitive market making, the integration of markets and market participants, price discovery, and other issues relating to market microstructure of options and futures markets.

Celso Brunetti, (Visiting Economist), joined the Commission in 2007. Prior to joining the Commission, he was at Johns Hopkins University and he is currently at the Federal Reserve Board. He provides economic advice on the Commission's rulemaking efforts and conducts quantitative analysis on the structure of derivatives markets and the behavior of intermediaries. He has written extensively in the area of econometrics and market microstructure. His research has been published in leading finance journals such as The Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Derivatives, and Journal of Empirical Finance. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of London.

Raymond P.H. Fishe, (Economist), has consulted with the Commission since 2009. He holds the Patricia A. and George W. Wellde, Jr. Distinguished Chair in Finance at the University of Richmond. Prior to consulting for the Commission, he was a visiting academic scholar at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He provides economic advice on the Commission’s rulemaking, supports enforcement investigations, and conducts quantitative analysis on the structure of derivatives markets and the strategic behavior of market participants. He has written extensively in the area of futures, options and market microstructure with an emphasis on economics journals, such as The Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial Markets, American Economic Review, Journal of Econometrics, and Financial Management. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Florida in 1979.

Richard Haynes, (Economist), joined the Commission in late 2011.  Since joining, he has aided the Commission in rulemaking related to swap markets, market microstructure analysis (primarily trading behaviors of high-frequency firms), and in data collection efforts across multiple assets.  In the years prior, he traded commodities for an investment bank in both New York and Hong Kong, and worked as an analyst for the Department of Energy.  He received a Ph.D. in Mathematics in 2006 from the University of Chicago.

Stephen Kane, (Research Economist), joined the Commission in 2010. He earned his Ph.D. in mathematics from Ohio State University. Stephen is a former finance professor at the University of Houston, Brooklyn Polytechnic University, and Suffolk University. He is a former Visiting Scholar at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Vice President at Chase Manhattan Bank, and Policy Analyst at Office of Management and Budget. Stephen has sixteen mathematical, statistical, and financial publications that are in journals such as the International Review of Financial Analysis and Financial Practice and Education among others. His current research interests include swaps regulation and CFTC policy, in general derivatives and CFTC policy, in general.

Andrei Kirilenko, (Chief Economist), has been with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) since 2008 and was appointed Chief Economist in December 2010. He received his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, where he specialized in financial markets. Prior to joining the CFTC, Dr. Kirilenko spent twelve years at the International Monetary Fund working on global capital markets issues. His research has focused on the informational properties and microstructure of securities and derivatives markets. He has published a number of journal articles appearing in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Markets, and IMF Staff Papers. In 2010, Dr. Kirilenko was the recipient of the CFTC Chairman’s Award for Excellence (highest honor).

Dan McKeever, (Research Economist), joined the Commission in September 2010. Mr. McKeever’s research interests include trading networks and their relation to systemic risk, the role of transparency in price discovery, market manipulation and distortion, and the regulation of emerging markets. At the Commission, he has contributed to a number of transparency initiatives, including the reporting and real-time public dissemination of swap transaction data and the publication of a new series of swaps market reports. He holds a bachelor’s degree with research distinction in economics.

Camden Nunery, (Economist), joined the Commission in 2011. Prior to joining the Commission, he was an Executive Advisor at the Corporate Executive Board. He provides economic advice on the Commission’s rulemaking and litigation efforts, supports enforcement investigations, and conducts quantitative analysis on the structure of derivatives markets and the behavior of intermediaries. He received a Master’s of Science in Finance from American University in 2011.

Onur, Esen, (Economist), has been with the Commission since fall 2011. He received his Ph.D. in economics from University of Virginia and his B.S. in physics from Koc University in Turkey. He has previously taught economics classes at University of Virginia as well as the College of William and Mary. His other teaching experiences have been with University of California, Davis and with University of Maryland. He is also a former economics professor at California State University. Sacramento. His research interests include foreign exchange market, information asymmetry in financial markets, market microstructure and prediction markets.

Lindolfo Pedraza, (Economist), joined the Commission in 2008. Prior to joining the Commission, he provided economic and analytical advice to several government agencies. He provides economic advice on the Commission's market oversight and enforcement activities and conducts quantitative analysis on the structure of derivatives markets, the behavior of intermediaries and their effects on the real economy. He has contributed extensively in the development of algorithmic analysis models used at Census, EIA and DOT with emphasis in market structure, physical trade and electronic trade mechanics. His research interest focuses on the effects financial market innovation and real economy technological innovation have on economic growth. He is a graduate of Universidad Regiomontana in Monterrey, Mexico and the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Michael Penick, (Senior Economist), has worked for the CFTC since 1991 and for the Office of the Chief Economist since 2002. He has worked with the Division of Enforcement on numerous market manipulation investigations, including Amaranth and Enron.  Research interests include the economic history of futures trading and regulation. He created and maintains the CFTC History pages on the CFTC Web site and maintains the CFTC glossary.  Prior to 2002, he reviewed new futures contracts and rule amendments for the CFTC’s Product Review Group.   Previously, he was a member of the Chicago Board of Trade where he traded options on Treasury bond futures and stock index futures. His article, “The Development and Current State of Derivatives Markets,” was published in Financial Derivatives: Pricing and Risk Management in 2009.

Todd Prono, (Research Economist), joined the Commission in 2009. Previously, he was a financial economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. He provides advice to the Commission on risk-based capital and margin regimes for swaps and futures as well as valuation methodologies for swaps. He is a financial econometrician focusing on conditional volatility estimation and the role such volatility plays in identifying linear models of the conditional mean, the latter focus termed identification through heteroskedasticity (IH). His work on conditional volatility estimation investigates closed-form (or very nearly closed-form) estimators with the goal of making feasible high-dimensional variance-covariance matrix modeling as is required for large-scale applications of Value at Risk (VaR). He received a Ph.D. in economics from Boston College in 2006.

David Reiffen, (Senior Economist), joined the Commission in 2003. Prior to joining the Commission, he was an Economist at the U.S. Treasury Department and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Dr. Reiffen’s research, at the Commission, has focused on evaluating the implications of ownership structure on the behavior of financial organizations, such as exchanges. He has also provided economic analysis of Commission’s rulemaking and litigation efforts. He has written extensively in industrial organization, and his works has been published in leading economics journals such as The American Economic Review, The Rand Journal of Economics, The Review of Economics and Statistics and The Journal of Law and Economics. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from UCLA.

Michel A. Robe, (Consulting Senior Economist), is an Associate Professor of Finance at American University's Kogod School of Business. He received his Ph.D. in Financial Economics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1995, and later taught international finance at the University of Miami and at McGill University. Professor Robe has been associated with the CFTC as a Senior Economist since 2006. His work on insider trading, financial regulation, security design, volatility, cross-border financial flows and risk sharing has appeared in the Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial & Quantitative Analysis, International Economic Review, Journal of Futures Markets, and other academic journals. His ongoing research at the CFTC includes papers on the financialization of commodity futures markets and its impact on intra- and cross-market linkages, as well as papers on speculative vs. hedging pressures, trading strategies, and overall derivative-market microstructure.

Hannah Ropp, (Research Economist), joined the Commission in September 2010 after receiving her bachelor’s degree in economics, business administration, and finance. She interned in the clearinghouse of CME Group, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois as an undergraduate student. Her undergraduate research focused on public education finance and the cultural effects of economic globalization. Ms. Ropp’s future research interests include the international regulation of financial markets, fundamentals of central counterparty clearing, and determining the real impact of regulation on market behavior.

Sayee Srinivasan, (Financial Economist), joined the Commission in 2012. Prior to joining the Commission, he has worked with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the Bombay Stock Exchange, the National Stock Exchange of India, and OptiMark Technologies focusing on market and product design, trading rules, and business development across a broad range of asset classes, and both cash and derivatives markets. His research interest includes regulatory policy development on issues related to pre-trade, trade, and post trade technology, systems, processes and risk management. He has an undergraduate degree in Accounting and Master’s degree in Finance from University of Bombay, and Master’s and Doctorate in Economics from the University of Texas at Austin.