Dr. Fernholz began his career as an academic mathematician at the University of Washington, and later held various professorships at City University of New York, Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires, and Princeton University. Fernholz left Princeton University in 1980 to become Research Director at Arbitrage Management Company. He also worked at Brignoli Models where he worked along-side Dr. Harry Markowitz.
In 1987, Dr. Fernholz founded Intech, basing our mathematical investment process on a 1982 paper he published, “Stochastic Portfolio Theory and Stochastic Market Equilibrium.” He later elaborated on these mathematical methods in his monograph, Stochastic Portfolio Theory (Springer 2002). Dr. Fernholz is also the author of numerous research articles both in pure and applied mathematics as well as statistics and mathematics of finance.
Dr. Fernholz married Luisa Turrin in 1970 and they have two sons: Daniel and Ricardo. Luisa Turrin Fernholz earned a Ph.D. in Statistics from Rutgers University and is Professor Emerita in Statistics at Temple University. Daniel T. Fernholz holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin, and Ricardo T. Fernholz earned a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley and is currently Assistant Professor of Economics at Claremont McKenna College.
Dr. Fernholz and his wife Luisa founded the Minerva Research Foundation in 1993 to promote research in mathematical and statistical sciences and to encourage the participation of women in these disciplines. Luisa Fernholz directs the Foundation, which has given support to the Institute’s School of Mathematics since 2007. Dr. Fernholz is also a trustee at the Institute for Advanced Study, an independent, postdoctoral research center for theoretical research, and the academic home for distinguished scholars like Albert Einstein, Kurt Gödel, John von Neumann and Hermann Weyl.