Hélyette Geman facts for kids

Hélyette Geman is a smart French expert in a field called mathematical finance. This area uses math to understand how money and investments work.

In 2022, she made history by becoming the first woman in 41 years to win a big award: 'Financial Engineer of the Year'. This award comes from a group called the International Association of Financial Engineers. She has worked in many areas, like understanding risks for big insurance companies, studying how likely things are to happen (probability theory), and learning about how money works with things like oil and gold (commodities).

She has taught at famous schools like ESSEC Business School, University Paris Dauphine, and Birkbeck, University of London. Today, she is a Research Professor at Johns Hopkins University.

What Hélyette Geman is Known For

Hélyette Geman is famous for several important contributions in her field:

• She was the first to officially introduce the forward measure. This is a special math tool used to figure out the value of things like interest rate derivatives.
• She created the term numéraire in the world of option pricing. This term helps people manage their investments in commodities like oil or gold.
• She showed how a "stochastic clock" driven by how many orders are placed can make asset returns seem normal. This helps understand how stock prices move.
• She helped create a very popular master's program. This program was a team effort between French universities like École Polytechnique and ESSEC Business School.
• She worked on how to price special insurance contracts called Catastrophe Futures and Options. These deal with big risks like natural disasters.
• She helped develop a special way to understand probability distributions. This is called the "CGMY" Lévy process, named after her and other famous mathematicians.
• She wrote a book in 2005 about how money works with commodities.
• In June 2000, she helped organize the very first Bachelier World Congress. This was a big meeting with famous experts like Paul Samuelson and Robert Merton.
• She wrote a book in 1999 called 'Insurance, Weather and Electricity Derivatives: From Exotic Options to Exotic Underlyings'.
• She has also done work on how Bitcoin relates to commodities.
• She was the PhD supervisor for Nassim Nicholas Taleb, another well-known author and expert.

Important Writings

Hélyette Geman has written many important papers and books. Here are a few examples:

• "Changes of Numeraire, Changes of Probability Measure and Option Pricing" (1995). This paper was about how to value options using different math methods.
• "The Fine Structure of Asset Returns: An Empirical Investigation" (2002). This work looked closely at how money investments change over time.
• "Order Flow, Transaction Clock and Normality of Asset Returns" (2000). This paper explored how the speed of trading affects how normal asset returns appear.
• "Stochastic Time Changes in Catastrophe Option Pricing Insurance, Mathematics and Economics" (1997). This writing discussed how to price options related to big disasters.

Awards and Honors

Hélyette Geman has received several awards for her important work:

• In 2022, she won the IAQF/Northfield Financial Engineer of the Year Award. This is a very high honor in her field.
• She is an honorary member of the French Society of Actuaries. Actuaries are experts who study financial risks.
• She was inducted into the Energy Risk Hall of Fame. This recognizes her important contributions to understanding energy markets.