Citadel Invests in Harvey Mudd Students Through Summer Scholars Program

Citadel and Harvey Mudd College announced a new program to help expand the College’s successful Summer Research Program, which provides hands-on, intensive research opportunities for Harvey Mudd students. The program, Citadel Summer Scholars, began with a selection process in March and launches in late May.

Three inaugural Citadel Scholars are preparing to work alongside College faculty researchers and to engage with Citadel staff for 10 weeks on cutting-edge research in statistical analysis, performance software, Big Data, machine learning, parallel computing and data analytics. At the conclusion of the 10 weeks, Citadel Summer Scholars are invited to Chicago to present their results to Citadel teams.

Citadel is a leading global financial institution that manages more than $26 billion in assets through its hedge fund platform. Citadel Securities is a top-ranked market making firm, providing liquidity and trade execution to the world’s leading retail and institutional clients. Recently ranked as one of the Top-20 Great Workplaces in Financial Services, Citadel has been actively involved with Harvey Mudd for many years, sponsoring projects in the Harvey Mudd Clinic Program, serving as a career services Corporate Partner and employing Harvey Mudd alumni, including Russ Osborn ’06 and Kyle Kelly ’05.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for students to work on the leading edge of finance and technology,” says Osborn. “It’s a win-win for Harvey Mudd and the Citadel team.”

Through Citadel Summer Scholars, Harvey Mudd computer science faculty members Jim Boerkoel (artificial intelligence), Julie Medero (natural language processing and machine learning) and Beth Trushkowsky (scalable databases, crowdsourcing and data management) will collaborate with students on active and ongoing projects to discover new knowledge and explore important challenges.

“We are excited about Citadel’s support of both faculty and students as they pursue research in data science,” says Andy Bernoff, the Diana and Kenneth Jonsson Professor of Mathematics, who worked with Citadel to develop this program. “The Citadel Summer Scholars is a novel mechanism for a private corporation to strengthen its ties to the College and to promote research with broad applications in fields such as finance, social media and genomics.”

“Through the Summer Research experience, students develop and grow to become more thoughtful scientists and researchers,” says Karl Haushalter, associate dean for research and experiential learning and associate professor of chemistry and biology. “They also go beyond learning a specific scientific discipline to learn an approach to scientific discovery that transforms them into true problem solvers.”

A recipient of the National Science Foundation’s prestigious Award for the Integration of Research and Education, Harvey Mudd College has long recognized the importance of collaborative student-faculty research, setting aside nearly $3 million annually for the purpose. The Citadel Summer Scholars directly benefits undergraduate research, a program that is central to the College and is a high priority for funding within the College’s current comprehensive $150 million campaign.