Optimal Sports Math, Statistics, and Fantasy

Dr. Robert Kissell is the president and founder of Kissell Research Group. He has over twenty years of experience specializing in economics, finance, math & statistics, risk, and sports modeling.

Dr. Kissell is author of the leading industry books, “The Science of Algorithmic Trading & Portfolio Management,” (Elsevier, 2013), “Multi-Asset Risk Modeling” (Elsevier, 2014), and “Optimal Trading Strategies,” (AMACOM, 2003). He has published numerous research papers on trading, electronic algorithms, risk management, and best execution. His paper, “Dynamic Pre-Trade Models: Beyond the Black Box,” (2011) won Institutional Investor’s prestigious paper of the year award.

Dr. Kissell is an adjunct faculty member of the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University and is an associate editor of the Journal of Trading and the Journal of Index Investing. He has previously been an instructor at Cornell University in their graduate Financial Engineering program.

Dr. Kissell has worked with numerous Investment Banks throughout his career including UBS Securities where he was Executive Director of Execution Strategies and Portfolio Analysis, and at JPMorgan where he was Executive Director and Head of Quantitative Trading Strategies. He was previously at Citigroup/Smith Barney where he was Vice President of Quantitative Research, and at Instinet where he was Director of Trading Research. He began his career as an Economic Consultant at R.J. Rudden Associates specializing in energy, pricing, risk, and optimization.

During his college years, Dr. Kissell was a member of the Stony Brook Soccer Team and was Co-Captain in his Junior and Senior years. It was during this time as a student athlete where he began applying math and statistics to sports modeling problems. Many of the techniques discussed in “Optimal Sports Math, Statistics, and Fantasy” were developed during his time at Stony Brook, and advanced thereafter. Thus, making this book the byproduct of decades of successful research.

Dr. Kissell has a Ph.D. in Economics from Fordham University, an MS in Applied Mathematics from Hofstra University, an MS in Business Management from Stony Brook University, and a BS in Applied Mathematics & Statistics from Stony Brook University.

Jim Poserina is a web application developer for the School of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He has been a web and database developer for over 15 years, having previously worked and consulted for companies including AT&T, Samsung Electronics, Barnes & Noble, IRA Financial Group, and First Investors. He is also a partner in Doctrino Systems, where in addition to his web and database development he is a systems administrator.

Mr. Poserina has been a member of the Society for American Baseball Research since 2000 and has been published in the Baseball Research Journal. He covered Major League Baseball, NFL and NCAA football, and NCAA basketball for the STATS LLC reporter network. In addition to the more traditional baseball play-by-play information, the live baseball reports included more granular data such as broken bats, catcher blocks, first baseman scoops, and over a dozen distinct codes for balls and strikes.

Mr. Poserina took second place at the 2016 HIQORA High IQ World Championships in San Diego, California, finishing ahead of over 2,000 participants from more than 60 countries. He is a member of American Mensa, where he has served as a judge at the annual Mind Games competition that awards the coveted Mensa Select seal to the best new tabletop games.

Mr. Poserina has a B.A. in history and political science from Rutgers University. While studying there he called Scarlet Knight football, basketball, and baseball games for campus radio station WRLC.