LIN  WILLIAM  CONG

Lin William Cong is the Rudd Family Endowed Chair Professor of Management and Professor of Finance at the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, where he is the founding faculty director for the FinTech Initiative and the founder of the Digital Economy and Financial Technology Lab (DEFT Lab). He is also an Editor at the Management Science, an associate or advisory editor for multiple leading academic and practitioner journals such as the Journal of Financial Intermediation and Journal of Portfolio Management, a Research Associate (senior research fellow) at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a senior fellow and founding track director at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER), a faculty scientist at the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies & Contracts (IC3), and the lead founder of multiple international research forums (www.CBER-Forum.org and www.ABFR-Forum.org). He was formerly a Kauffman Foundation Junior Faculty Fellow, 2024 UBRI Educator of the year, a 2020 Poets & Quants 40 under 40 World Best Business School Professor, a 2022 Top 10 Quant Professor, a finance professor and Ph.D. advisor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George Shultz Scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and a doctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies. He is also a member of multiple professional organizations such as the American Economic Association, European Finance Association, and the Econometric Society. 

   Professor Cong’s research spans financial economics, information economics, AI for Finance, applied theory, FinTech, the digital economy, and entrepreneurship and innovation, and has been published in top academic journals and featured in BBC, Bloomberg, CNN, the Economist, Washington Post, etc. He and his coauthors have pioneered building AI models for finance, examined the economics and implications of generative AI, laid the foundations of tokenomics (covering categorization of tokens, cryptocurrency pricing, central bank digital currencies/payment systems, and optimal token monetary policy design), analyzed centralization issues and dynamic incentives in blockchains and DeFi, and developed data analytics for detecting market manipulation and better FinTech regulation, among others. He has been recognized with a number of accolades including over 50 conference best paper prizes and competitive grants. As one of the most cited finance theorists and best published scholars on FinTech and digital economics, he is highly sought-after for delivering keynote speeches at various international conferences and forums. He has also been invited to speak or teach at hundreds of world-renowned universities, venture funds, technology firms, investment and trading shops, and government agencies such as IMF, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Ant Financial, U.S. Department of Justice, and federal reserve banks.

   Cong has advised FinTech organizations and investment firms such as Ansatz Capital, Ava Labs, Blackrock, Citi Bank, Dfinity, and Chainlink (as the first Senior Economic Advisor and Senior Economist), Modular Asset Management, Wall Street Blockchain Alliance, as well as government and regulatory agencies such as the New York State Department of Financial Services, UNICEF, Bank of Canada, Department of the Treasury, and Asset Management Association of China. His coauthors and he were among the earliest to point the environmental harm of mining pools, wash trading on unregulated crypto exchanges, the problem of vertical integration in CeFi that underlie the FTX collapse, and the lack of inclusion in current Web3 ecosystems. As such, he has also been consulted regarding FinTech regulation and prominent litigation cases, by the SEC, FBI agent, and New York State Office of the Attorney General, among others, and was invited to advise regulators and federal prosecutors to fight against manipulations in cryptocurrency markets and frauds. 

   Cong earned a Ph.D. in Finance and a MS in Statistics from Stanford University, where he served as the president of Ph.D. students association, received the Asian American Award for Graduate Leadership, and was recognized with the Lieberman Fellowship for outstanding contributions in research, teaching, and university service. He also holds dual degrees from Harvard University where he graduated summa cum laude and top in the Physics department (perfect GPA for all major courses), with an A.M. in Physics, an A.B. in Math & Physics, a minor in Economics, and a language citation in French. Cong is a native of Shenyang, China, and has lived in Singapore and sojourned in Canada, Japan, and the UK. Cong enjoys Chinese calligraphy, reading, sports, fitness, guitar, as well as learning French and Japanese. Cong is also passionate about education, China-U.S. relations, technology innovations, and integrating fundamental valuation, quantitative investing, and financial technology in asset management.