Professor Emanuel Derman joined Columbia University's Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department in 2003. Prior to joining Columbia, he was a managing director at Goldman Sachs, where he was head of the quantitative strategies group in the equities division, and then head of quantitative risk strategies in firm-wide risk. He is best known for his work on the Black-Derman-Toy interest-rate model and for developing local volatility models of the implied volatility smile.

Professor Derman's research interests include quantitative finance, financial engineering, derivatives valuation, volatility models, and risk management. He has published in numerous journals including the Financial Analysts Journal, RISK, The Journal of Portfolio Management, and the Journal of Derivatives. His recent memoir, My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance, was published in 2004 and was selected as one of Business Week's top ten books of the year.

Professor Derman was named IAFE/SunGard Financial Engineer of the Year in 2000.