José Scheinkman

José Alexandre Scheinkman (born January 11, 1948) is a Brazilian-American economist, currently the Edwin W. Rickert Professor of Economics at Columbia University and the Theodore A. Wells '29 Professor of Economics Emeritus at Princeton University. He spent much of his career at the University of Chicago, where he served as department chair immediately prior to his departure for Princeton. Prior to immigrating to the United States to study for his PhD in Economics at the University of Rochester, he grew up and was educated in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. While his research interests have spanned a wide range of topics, he is best known for his work in mathematical economics (particularly dynamic optimization) and finance, oligopoly theory and the social economics of cities and crime; he also help spur the development of work at the intersection of economics, finance and physics. Scheinkman also famously pioneered the now-ubiquitous application of academic financial theory to practical risk management of fixed incomes during a leave he took as Vice President in the Financial Strategies Group at Goldman, Sachs & Co. during the late 1980s.