Chemical Engineer Finds Finance Niche

Passion for math and science led Russell Wermers to a career in chemical engineering. His transition to finance came later, when he enrolled in an MBA program and discovered the need for quantitative rigor in a frontier industry with high potential for innovation.

“There were a lot of things to explore in finance,” says Wermers, a pioneer in mutual funds research at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. “Chemical engineering is very defined with equations that predict how things will behave. But finance gave me this open field that still has a lot of development to go.”

Wermers brings the same excitement for discovery to the classroom, where he teaches quantitative equity portfolio management in the undergraduate and Master of Finance programs at Maryland Smith.

The goal, he says, is to help students combine economic intuition, statistical modeling, computer coding and even human psychology to crack the code of market anomalies.

“My students discover how exciting it is to blend all of these seemingly unrelated fields together,” Wermers says. “I’ve never heard any of them say anything but, ‘This has been an overwhelming class, but I’ve loved every minute of it and have learned so much from it.’”

Wermers appreciated the structure of chemical engineering during an eight-year career at Unocal Corporation in California. “But eventually I matured to the point where I wanted to make a dent or a contribution to a field where the equations driving results are less well known — or maybe they’re not possible to quantify in a precise way at all,” he says. "My research suggests the answer is 'sort of.’”

Wermers considered a Wall Street career after leaving Unocal but felt pulled toward academia.

“My greatest ambition is to be somebody who speaks, teaches, researches — somebody who tries to help people become thought leaders in a subject,” says Wermers, director of the school's Center for Financial Policy.

He says working with Smith students also keeps him energized. “Being around young people who are passionate for knowledge makes me feel young as well,” he says.

After students finish their coursework, Wermers enjoys following their careers.

“It’s really exciting to see students catch on fire,” he says. “Many of them have gone on to work for quantitative investment funds, and some have fallen in love with the topic so much that they progressed to do PhDs.”