Contact Information

66 Chuan Terrace
Singapore 558518
Voice: +65 9646 0974
Fax: +65 6338 2312
E-mail: Manoj@Thulasidas.com

Professional Interests

Quantitative finance, trading models and systems development, implementation and integration.

Education

Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA, Ph.D. in Experimental High Energy Physics (August 1993)

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, India, B.Tech. Electronics Engineering (July, 1987)

Skills

• Quant team development and management, extensive product and business knowledge from the Front Office and Middle Office perspective, stochastic processes, pricing models, systems and their implementation.
• Vast background in quantitative and scientific methods, and proven communication and people skills.
• Programming languages (C++, C#, C, VBA, Fortran, Pascal, HTML, XML, assembly level), office suites, spreadsheets, research tools (Mathematica/Matlab), development environments (Visual Studio, CygWin), page layout (LATEX), shell scripting, etc.
• Proven oral and written communication skills: Published writer, regular columnist for the Wilmott Magazine and a local newspaper, featured in TV news programs, newspapers and magazine cover stories.

Career History

Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore

Senior Quantitative Developer/Associate Director    Since October, 2007

Team lead for the Front Office Quant Integration team (of three to five quantitative developers) for adapting and integrating pricing models developed in-house for Front Office deployment. Responsibilities include:

• Developing and supporting in-house trading systems including trader interface (GUI in Excel or native), booking (Sybase), risk-management reports meeting rapid time-to-market requirements. Interacting with the trading desks, structuring and IT, the Quant Integration group is in charge of the entire process from prototype implementation and tests, validation, documentation and maintenance of the pricing libraries
• Coordinating new products pipelines across all asset classes, design, implement and deploy innovative architecture for in-house trading and booking systems.

Development primarily in C++, leveraging on and complementing the extensive quantitative library in the bank.

OCBC Bank, Singapore

Vice President, Market Risk Management     April, 2007 to November, 2007
AVP (Head), Market Risk Management       November, 2006 to March, 2007
Assistant Vice President, Market Risk Management     October, 2005 to October, 2006

V.P. in charge of two Market Risk Management groups:

1. The Market Risk Management Analytics Group (team of three to five quantitative analysts) is Middle Office based and responsible for analysis and validation of new financial models. The activity concentrates mainly on products and models supported by the Front Office system (commercial Murex, Kondor+), covering all relevant business areas (Equity, Interest Rate, and Credit derivates). Implementation is done in VBA/C/C++ for prototypes (Excel) and C/C++ using numerous applied mathematical techniques such as stochastic calculus, partial differential equations and Monte Carlo simulations.
2. The Rates Management team of four for market data sourcing, processing and management. The team sources and assesses the validity and usability of market rates and data.

Institute for Infocomm Research (I²R), Singapore

Associate Lead Scientist    April, 2003 to October, 2005

Neuro-Informatics: Research and development on Brain-Computer Interface. Designed and implemented a BCI system using Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS), being used at the Tokyo Institute of Psychiatry, Japan and Eberhard-Karls-University of Tübingen, Germany. Developed EEG based systems, awarded Samsung DigitAll Hope grant. Several peer-reviewed articles. Expertise in signal processing techniques (Support Vector Machine, Neural Net) and programming (C#, C++, MatLab).

Laboratory for Information Technology (LIT)/ Kent Ridge Digital Labs (KRDL), Singapore

Research Scientist    August, 1998 to March, 2003

In charge of the New Initiative research group.

Physiometrics: Bio-signal analysis for new biometric features. Analyzed ECG and bio-impedance data and discovered identifiable characteristics in bio-signals and measurements. Patent filed.

BodyNet: Developed a low voltage, robust and safe communication system over human body using on-off keying. Developed a prototype and filed patent.
Wearable Computing: Analysis and detection of irregular activities using a wearable system. Developed an accelerometer based tug detection system in intelligent attire. Patent filed.
Expertise in sensors, actuators and embedded systems programming.

CERN, Geneva, Switzerland and CPPM, Marseilles, France.

Research Engineer, CNRS, France     September, 1993 to July, 1998

Vertex Detector: Research and development of the precision tracking device Vertex Detector) for the ALEPH experiment, including a detailed simulation and analysis package modeling the track energy deposits and random noise. Developed a rigorous mathematical treatment of the alignment errors in the detector resulting in a near perfect agreement between the data and simulation. Numerous publications.

Professional Training

• September 2008, Singapore. Media Skills Training organized by Corporate Affairs, Standard Chartered Bank.
• December 2005, Singapore. Practical Applications of Exotic Options in Asia by The Financial Training Company, Kaplan.
  
• July 2006, Singapore. Overview of Banking by The Financial Training Company, Kaplan.
  
• December 2006, Singapore. The OCBC New Manager’s Program by Forum.
  
• March 2005, Singapore. Scientific Writing Skills by A*STAR, Institute for Infocomm Research.
  
• November 2003, London, UK. Neuroscan School by Advanced Medical Equipment Ltd.
  
• March 1996, Lyon, France. Relational Databases by L’École d’Informatique Générale Fraco-Tunisienne.
  

Honors and Awards

• January 2008 Singapore. TV coverage (Channel 5 and Channel News Asia) commenting on the subprime crisis and economic outlook.
• January 2008 London. Featured in the cover story of the Wilmott Magazine, commenting on the volatile year as a quantitative finance expert.
• December 2004 Singapore. TV coverage on the Brain-Computer Interface research results, 11 minute program on Channel News Asia.
• November 2004 Singapore. Samsung Digitall Hope award (grant) and local TV news coverage on Channel i.
• Best paper award at MEDSIP04, Malta.
  September 2004 Singapore. Coverage in the Straits Times newspaper on Brain-Computer Interface.
• November 1995 CPPM, Marseilles, France. Chosen by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) as Ingenieur de Recherche (Research Engineer) following an open nation wide competition.
• Fall 1987 Summer 1993 Syracuse University, USA. Graduate Assistantship and Tuition Scholarship awarded on the basis of the academic merit.
• Summer 1983 Trivandrum, India. Ranked 63^rd in India in the Joint Entrance Exam (out of about 75,000 students).
• Summer 1982 Trivandrum, India. Ranked 3^rd in the state of Kerala, India in the Engineering Entrance Exam (out of about 10,000 students).

Selected Publications

Over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and two books.

• Latest book – “The Principles of Quantitative Development,” 2010, Wiley Finance (Chichester, UK).
• Regular columnist for the Wilmott Magazine (London), the Today paper (Singapore).
• M. Thulasidas, “Are Radio Sources and Gamma Ray Bursts Luminal Booms?” Int. J. Mod. Phys.D Vol. 16, No. 6 (2007) pp. 9831000
• M. Thulasidas, “Perceptual Effects in Relativity and Astrophysics,” Galilean Electrodynamics. (2008.)
• M. Thulasidas et al., “Robust Classification of EEG Signal for Brain-Computer Interface,” IEEE Tran. Neural Systems and Rehab. Engineering Vol. 14 (2006) pp. 2429.
• M. Thulasidas et al., “Robust classification of event-related potential for brain-computer interface,” Proc. Intl. Conf. Adv. in Medical Signal & Information Processing, Malta, (2004) pp. 321326 (Best paper award)