Born – Yaoundé, Cameroon
PhD – University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Joined University of Liverpool – 2012
Position – Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Department of Mathematical Sciences
Group – Institute for Financial and Actuarial Mathematics
What is your research about?
My research relates to stochastic analysis, which is a field in probability theory – a branch of mathematics that examines random phenomena. I am particularly interested in (backward) stochastic differential equations, dynamical systems, stochastic optimal control and their applications to finance and microfinance.
What or who first inspired you to be interested in your research subject?
As a PhD student at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, I was inspired by my supervisors who were studying some interesting optimal control problems. During my postdoc, at the University of Oslo in Norway, I became fascinated by the position of a dynamical system at a given time. “What were the factors to be considered to describe such movements?” That was the starting point of my research in (backward) stochastic differential equations and applications.
My interest in financial inclusion, also known as microfinance, began when I was offered a Humboldt fellowship at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Ghana. Looking at some small traders reminded me of my mother, who was also a small business owner, and of all the constraints that come with such endeavours such as inaccessibility to credit from traditional bank, lack of a pension, and inaccessibility to loans. Currently most traditional financial services exclude these individuals and they mainly get their loans from microfinance institutions. As a mathematician, I believe it is important to build useful and affordable financial products to help these petty traders.
What are you most proud of achieving during your research career so far?
This is often a challenging question. However, if I had to pick one, it would be the results on existence and uniqueness of strong solutions of stochastic differential equations with rough coefficients and the smoothness of these solutions. This result has applications in partial differential equations and finance, particularly in option pricing in a regime switching environment.
What techniques and equipment do you use to conduct your research?
As a mathematician, I mainly use pens, papers, a good internet connection and some programming languages such as R and Python in my research.
Which other subjects are important for your research?
Finance and economics are important to my research as some of the applications come from there. Physics is equally very important since many interesting equations studied in mathematics come from physics.
What is the key to running a successful research group?
I believe that it is important for the success of a research group to have a good chemistry, understanding and social cohesion. Researchers should also have all the support they need. Depending on project size, some complex or multidimensional projects require research associates who specialise in different components of the study. These associates equally support junior students and foreground work in industry.
What impact is your research having outside of academia?
We are currently working with a microfinance institution in Ghana to develop affordable financial products for the needs of their customers. Examples of these include finding ways in which lowering borrowing rates can grow membership. We are also working with the national insurance commission in Ghana to develop a national mortality table. This is critical for policy interventions which can improve pension systems and social security in general. These are critical to reducing mortality, saving lives and orientating government projects to improve quality of life, service delivery and strengthen institutions of governance.
How do you plan to develop your research in the future?
I have recently been interested in the regularisation by noise of differential equations and would like to study such phenomena for some specific type of irregular functions. My interest in financial inclusion has also generated some projects in applying data sciences in modelling loan default in microfinance institutions. The next step will be to solve those problems. Last but not the least, working with some emerging non-profit organisations such as Peacebuilders Without Borders, we are working on identifying triggers of war, analyzing the cost of war versus the cost of peace, and making a case for conflict prevention using mathematical models.
What problem would you like to solve in the next 10 years through your research?
I have been fascinated by problems of regularisation by noise of ordinary and partial differential equations. I am interested in studying this question when the noise is replaced by a deterministic function and hope that I can contribute in that direction.
What advice would you give to someone considering a career in research?
As fascinating as it can be, research can also be frustrating. My advice would be not to discourage yourself and not to be afraid of challenges. Do not hesitate to ask yourself questions, do not hesitate to break new grounds. Achievement comes with hard work, discipline and resilience.
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