Yunkun Zhou

Yunkun Zhou is a mathematician and quantitative-trading technologist. He represented China at the 2014 International Mathematical Olympiad (gold medal), then earned a Mathematics B.S. at MIT (2015-2019, Putnam Fellow 2016 and 2017) and a Mathematics PhD at Stanford (2019-2024) under Jacob Fox, with a dissertation on Ramsey theory and discrepancy theory. His industry experience includes a 2017 Quantitative Trading Intern role at Tower Research Capital and data-science internships at Expedia Group; the Stanford Mathematics department lists his first position after graduating (2024) as Algorithm Developer at Hudson River Trading.

Notes15

• Quant employment verification: CONFIRMED. Two distinct quantitative-finance trading firms appear on a supported identity: (1) Quantitative Trading Intern at Tower Research Capital, Greater New York City Area, 2017 (LinkedIn lists the role; Tower Research Capital is a computerized/algorithmic trading firm per its own site, so this is a genuine quant-trading internship, not a student program); (2) Algorithm Developer at Hudson River Trading, listed as his first position after graduating, on the Stanford Mathematics department page (2024). His identity is supported by the MIT B.S. (2015-2019) and Stanford Mathematics PhD (2024, advisor Jacob Fox) matching the IMO/MIT/Stanford math record. Employer classification: Tower Research Capital and Hudson River Trading both operate as quantitative/algorithmic trading firms. The Tower role is index/LinkedIn-sourced (not independently corroborated by a third-party primary record); the HRT placement is stated by his university department page.
• First position after graduating (2024): Algorithm Developer at Hudson River Trading, per the Stanford Mathematics department page — a move into quantitative/algorithmic trading rather than academia.Jun 2024
• Tower Research Capital describes itself as a quantitative trading firm ('the world's best quantitative trading teams ... any market, any asset class'), confirming the 2017 internship sits at a genuine algorithmic-trading employer.Aug 2026
• Quantitative Trading Intern at Tower Research Capital (Greater New York City Area), 2017, while an MIT undergraduate; work included speeding up a Cython compiler (shared builds via DB/hashing, header auto-scan optimization).Aug 2017
• Timeline read: a Tower Research quant internship in 2017 (rising MIT junior), then a Stanford Mathematics PhD (2019-2024), then an Algorithm Developer seat at Hudson River Trading in 2024 — the record shows two separate quantitative trading employers, with the intervening PhD and pure-math publication record the notable gap between them.
• PhD in Mathematics, Stanford University, 2019-2024; dissertation 'Advances in Ramsey theory and discrepancy theory' under advisor Jacob Fox.Jun 2024
• Profiled in Jane Street's 2023 Graduate Research Fellowship profiles as a Stanford student advised by Jacob Fox — a finance-adjacent fellowship listed on the profile, distinct from an employment role.2023
• 2018-2019 MIT SuperUROP scholar (EECS, cryptography): researched the Shortest Vector Problem under Vinod Vaikuntanathan; listed contact [contact omitted].Sep 2018
• Named a Putnam Fellow in 2016 as an MIT freshman (top individual scorers); MIT's 2016 Putnam team placed first.May 2016
• Represented China at the International Mathematical Olympiad 2014 and won a gold medal (rank 15, 35/42 points, +3 above the gold cutoff); this Olympiad record is the identity anchor used for the whole profile.Jul 2014
• Still co-authoring after the PhD: 'Finding blowups one vertex at a time' (arXiv:2605.23301, 2026) with Jacob Fox and others.May 2026
• Data Science Intern at Expedia Group (Greater Seattle Area), 2019: built distributed learning infrastructure controlling memory/bandwidth via Python and Kubernetes.Aug 2019