Irene Aldridge is an internationally-recognized quantitative and Big Data Finance researcher, Adjunct Professor at Cornell University and Lecturer at Cambridge University (U.K.). In addition, Irene is President and Managing Director, Research, of AbleMarkets, a Big Data for Capital Markets company, as well as President of AbleBlox, a blockchain startup, and ETFPick.com, an AI ETF analysis and portfolio management tool. Prior to AbleMarkets, AbleBlox and ETFPick, she designed and ran high-frequency trading strategies in a $20-million cross-asset portfolio. Still previously, Aldridge was, in reverse order, a quant on a trading floor; in charge of risk quantification of commercial loans; Basel regulation team lead; technology equities researcher; lead systems architect on large integration projects, including web security and trading floor globalization. Aldridge started her career as a software engineer in financial services. Irene is a co-author of “Big Data Science in Finance” (with Marco Avellaneda, Wiley 2021), “Real-Time Risk: What Investors Should Know About Fintech, High-Frequency Trading, Flash Crashes” (co-authored with Steve Krawciw, Wiley, 2017), and the author of “High-Frequency Trading: A Practical Guide to Algorithmic Strategies and Trading Systems” (2nd edition, translated into Chinese, Wiley 2013), among other work.
Aldridge holds a BE in Electrical Engineering from Cooper Union, and MS in Financial Engineering from Columbia University, and an MBA from INSEAD. In addition, Aldridge studied in two PhD programs: Operations Research at Columbia University (ABD) and Finance (ABD). Aldridge is the author of multiple academic papers and several books. Her recent academic publications include “Neural Networks in Finance: Design and Performance” (with Marco Avellaneda in the Journal of Financial Data Science, 2019), “Big Data in Portfolio Management” (Journal of Financial Data Science, 2019), “ETFs, High-Frequency Trading and Flash Crashes” (Journal of Portfolio Management, 2016), and “High-Frequency Runs and Flash Crash Predictability” (Journal of Portfolio Management, 2014). Aldridge presently serves on the Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of Applied Data Science to Finance.
Aldridge was born in Riga, Latvia, to an entrepreneurial and academic family. Aldridge’s maternal grandfather founded and ran for nearly two decades the first semiconductor manufacturing enterprise in the Soviet Block, Alfa, located in Riga, Latvia. Aldridge’s paternal grandmother was Minister of Education. Aldridge’s mother holds a PhD in Physical Chemistry and her father is a software entrepreneur. Aldridge’s step-grandfather is Pauls Butkevics, an actor who earned the highest artistic honors from the Republic of Latvia and Russian Federation. Aldridge’s predecessors include European and Russian nobility on both sides of her family. Aldridge is married with three children.
