Vardan Verdiyan

Vardan Verdiyan is a quantitative analyst ('Quant') at Fidelity Investments, working in the firm's Quantitative Research and Investments (QRI) division, which manages systematic products and solutions and supports investors with quantitative insights. He works with the Target Date portfolio management team on strategic and active asset allocation research, portfolio construction and risk management, on the Multi-Asset Class Quantitative Research team. Previously he was a quantitative analyst at Strategic Advisers LLC, another Fidelity affiliate. He joined the financial industry at Fidelity in 2017, after a Quantitative Research internship at Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co. (2015) and a Summer Associate role in Standard & Poor's QARG (2013). He holds a BS in Mathematics from Jacobs University Bremen (2009-2012) and a PhD in Mathematical Finance from Cornell University (2012-2016). He represented Armenia at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 2006 and 2007, earning Honourable Mentions both years.

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• Quant employment verification: CONFIRMED. Vardan Verdiyan holds an actual quantitative role: Fidelity Investments 'Quant' (Quantitative Analyst) in the Quantitative Research and Investments (QRI) division since 2017, per his LinkedIn experience and a Fidelity Institutional author bio (institutional.fidelity.com, 9903213.PDF) that names him 'a quantitative analyst in the Quantitative Research and Investments division.' Fidelity QRI 'manages systematic products and solutions'; the employer is a genuine investment manager, not a name-only 'quant' firm. Prior quant roles: Quantitative Research Intern at Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co. (GMO), 2015 (value-strategy and proprietary financial-model work), and Summer Associate in S&P's QARG, 2013 (CDO Evaluator correlation modeling in C++). Identity is supported by the Olympiad record (IMO 2006/2007, Armenia), the PhD-in-mathematical-finance education and the Fidelity bio all matching the same person, so the role evidence is not index-only.2024
• Fidelity Institutional author bio describes his remit: works with the Target Date portfolio management team on strategic and active asset allocation research, portfolio construction and risk management, on the Multi-Asset Class Quantitative Research team; earlier a quantitative analyst at Strategic Advisers LLC improving firm modeling across alpha and risk.2024
• His quantitative-finance history spans asset management (Fidelity QRI, Strategic Advisers), a hedge-fund-style manager (GMO quantitative research internship, 2015) and a ratings/analytics desk (S&P QARG, 2013); all three are genuine quantitative-finance employers, distinguishing real quant work from any name-only 'quant' signal.2017
• Olympiad record: represented Armenia at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 2006 and 2007, earning an Honourable Mention both years (2006 score 14; 2007 score 9).
• Education: PhD in Mathematical Finance, Cornell University (2012-2016), and BS in Mathematics from Jacobs University Bremen, Germany (2009-2012), per LinkedIn enrichment and the Fidelity bio (which confirms the Jacobs BS and Cornell PhD).
• At Fidelity he leads an 'Innovation Lab SMT' within a multi-asset Strategic Asset Allocation remit, and the Fidelity bio shows he moved from Strategic Advisers LLC into the QRI Multi-Asset team - a two-step internal path that kept him in systematic/allocation research rather than a trading desk role.
• Recognized in the acknowledgements of the 2025 paper 'OverThink: Slowdown Attacks on Reasoning LLMs' (arXiv 2502.02542) for insights on decoy problem sets.Feb 2025
• Participated in the NSF-funded RIPS summer research program (2010) at USC's Information Sciences Institute, listed on the team roster as 'Vardan Verdiyan, Jacobs University'.Aug 2010
• Co-authored the widely circulated olympiad article 'Simple trigonometric substitutions with broad results' with Daniel Campos Salas, reprinted in Mathematical Reflections and multiple collections.
• As a Jacobs University freshman (2009-2010) he was part of a team awarded 'Meritorious Winner' at the international mathematical contest in modeling (COMAP) alongside Vaidotas Kurlianskas and Radu Frunza.
• Spoke at a Holy Trinity Armenian Church series 'Wellbeing in the Age of AI' on May 7, 2026, billed as 'Vardan Verdiyan - PhD, Cornell University', indicating continued public/community engagement in the Boston area.May 2026
• No GitHub, personal website, or public email was found; his public footprint is effectively LinkedIn plus a Fidelity author bio and mathematics-olympiad material, so the profile leans on those rather than a technical/OSS presence.