Melanie L. Petsch

Lead Data Scientist, Regulation, New York Stock Exchange
BSME 1988

FOR HER ESTABLISHED SUCCESS AS A DATA SCIENTIST WHOSE DAILY EFFORTS ON THE EVALUATION AND ANALYSIS OF BIG QUOTE AND TRADE DATA, FINANCIAL RESEARCH AND DATA VISUALIZATION, REGULATION, MARKET MICROSTRUCTURE, TRADING AND ACTIVE EQUITY PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT HAVE GLOBAL ECONOMIC IMPACT.

As a Lead Data Scientist for Regulation on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), Melanie Petsch works with big data to support trading regulations. Her responsibilities include querying and building analytical evidence from complex tick data and trade blotters; running a proof-of-concept tech evaluation; curating, analyzing and visualizing data; and building new tools to improve analyst productivity.

Petsch contributes to her alma mater through her active membership on the Purdue School of Mechanical Engineering Advisory Council since 2019, and to students at Columbia University through her work as an adjunct faculty member.

Petsch says she learned an "engineer's mindset" during her undergraduate years at Purdue. She now brings that mindset to the world of finance analytics and policy: "I learned how to think about problems. What are my assumptions? What is the actual problem and what would a solution look like?" On a lighter note, she adds, "I also learned that I am better with concepts, equations and data than with, say, physical labs. Let's not talk about how many ops amps I burned out."

With colleagues from Goldman, she is widely published on financial topics, including "Beating Benchmarks," which received an award for Outstanding Article in the Journal of Portfolio Management. She also wrote "Creating Shareholder Value," which was published as the lead article in the inaugural issue of The Journal of Risk Finance. Petsch also is the author of the book, "Commodities as an Asset Class," and has contributed chapters to other books on commodities.

In 2019, Petsch was invited to be a "Women Innovators in Finance" panelist by the International Association of Quantitative Finance. She also received the Purdue's Outstanding Mechanical Engineer Award in 2018. She serves on the boards of the Society of Quantitative Analysts and of the Greater New York Bridge Association, which is her local chapter of the American Contract Bridge League. She has previously been a member of the Research Committee of the Q Group and a trustee for Woodbury College.

One of Petsch's favorite Purdue professors was the late Alan McDonald, professor of mechanical engineering and a distinguished fluid mechanics researcher. "He was the one who asked us to be clear about the problem, our assumptions, our analysis, and identifying our answer," she says. "He also might be the first professor who made me realize that I sometimes stand out. Toward the end of one semester, another student asked how hard an exam would be and he responded, without missing a beat, 'Well, Melanie will get 100%.' I appreciate that now but wanted to fade into invisibility then."

Career Highlights

2018-present Lead Data Scientist, Regulation, New York Stock Exchange
2010-present Adjunct Associate Professor, Columbia University
2009-2018 Managing Partner, Petsch Analytics, LLC
2007-2008 Senior Quantitative Researcher, AllianceBernstein
2004-2007 Quantitative Financial Researcher, TIAA-CREF
2003-2004 U.S. Portfolio Strategist, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein
1995-2003 Quantitative Equity Researcher and Commodity Researcher, Goldman Sachs & Co.

Education

1988 BS Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University
1996 MBA Booth School of Business, University of Chicago