Wentao Zhao, an adjunct professor in the practice of statistics at Rice University and lecturer for the Center for Computational Finance and Economic Systems (CoFES), has joined PJM Interconnection as senior director in charge of modeling the electricity market.
Founded in 1927, PJM is the world's largest electric grid operator and manages the largest wholesale electricity market, bringing electricity buyers and sellers together.
Zhao has 18 years of experience working in various financial markets, specializing in risk management, structuring and hedging, economic forecasting, and quantitative modeling. He served nearly six years as a quantitative analytics manager in global trading at ExxonMobil.
Before his tenure with ExxonMobil, he was a vice president in quantitative research analysis for the American investment company PIMCO, where he worked on strategic asset allocation and cross-asset class strategies. He was a vice president in quantitative analysis at MUFG, a leading Japanese financial group, where he developed wholesale credit models for real estate investment trusts (REITs) and clients in the oil and gas industry. After earning his doctorate in electrical engineering at Texas A&M University in 2008, he worked at ConocoPhillips for nearly eight years as a quantitative researcher on the power and gas trading floor.
Zhao has served as a lecturer for the Rice University course Quantitative Financial Risk Management - STAT 449/649 since 2022. His instructional methods draw from his extensive industry experience as he guides students through theoretical and empirical studies on risk measurement and probability.
In addition to his doctorate, Zhao has a master's and bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
- Shawn Hutchins, Communications and Marketing Specialist
