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Basics

Name Dafu Zhu
Label Quantitative Researcher
Email dafuzhu@uchicago.edu
Url https://dafu-zhu.github.io

Education

  • 2025.09 - 2026.12
    Master of Science
    The University of Chicago
    Financial Mathematics
    • Options Pricing
    • Statistical Inference
    • Stochastic Calculus
    • Computing for Finance in C++
  • 2021.09 - 2025.06
    Bachelor of Economics
    Xiamen University
    Economics
    • Mathematical Statistics
    • Time Series Analysis
    • Numerical Analysis
    • Stochastic Processes
    • Machine Learning

Work

  • 2025.10 - Present

    Chicago, IL

    Quantitative Developer
    7 Chord Inc.
    University of Chicago Project Lab
    • Develop Java shared library for FIX 4.4 bond feed ingestion processing 11,500 messages/sec, publishing to RabbitMQ with automated alerting and PostgreSQL logging
    • Building full-depth order book pipeline in Docker extracting top-of-book quotes and spread analytics
  • 2024.08 - 2024.11

    Hangzhou, China

    Quantitative Developer Intern
    DolphinDB Inc.
    • Developed Barra-CNE6 risk model with 33 factors covering 4,800+ equities using Newey-West HAC estimator
    • Designed portfolio optimizer supporting 8 objectives and 10+ constraints, improving annualized return by 1.13%
  • 2024.03 - 2024.07

    Shenzhen, China

    Quantitative Researcher Intern
    Infinity Capital Management Co., Ltd.
    • Devised multi-factor equity model with dynamic factor weighting, achieving IC 0.087 with ICIR 0.589
    • Constructed risk parity strategy with Ledoit-Wolf covariance shrinkage, achieving Sharpe 1.34 and -7.68% max drawdown
  • 2023.09 - 2024.02

    Shanghai, China

    Quantitative Analyst Intern
    China Industrial Securities Co., Ltd.
    • Validated jump-intensity anomaly on CSI300 using Lee-Mykland detection, improving Sharpe by 3.5x with regime filter
    • Implemented 3-state Hidden Markov Model for macro regime classification, generating 2.15x cumulative return

Projects

  • 2025.10 - 2025.12
    End-to-end Trading System with Backtesting
    • Built asynchronous pipeline with WebSocket streams enabling sub-100ms order execution
    • SQLite cache reduced data latency 10x with volume-based slippage modeling
  • 2025.11 - Present
    Alpha Research Platform
    • Integrated SEC EDGAR XBRL fundamentals and Alpaca daily ticks
    • Architected alpha research API with 60+ vectorized operators and expression parser
  • 2024.12 - Present
    Genetic Programming Factor Mining System
    • 13.9% of mined factors achieved 5%+ IC out-of-sample across 3,000+ A-share equities
    • Extended with Maskable PPO agent achieving 8-11% IC and 1.0-1.4 ICIR

Skills

Programming Languages
Python
Java
SQL
R
MATLAB
Libraries & Infrastructure
NumPy
Polars
scikit-learn
PyTorch
PostgreSQL
MongoDB
Linux
Docker
AWS
Git