UQ Business School winter research participant, Ivan De Castro, developed a webpage capable of producing systemic risk measurements of the Australian stock market on a daily basis as part of his 2015 winter research project.
The aim of the project was to develop a dynamic webpage about portfolio optimization strategies and systemic risk measures of firms and industries in the Australian Stock Exchange.
Ivan started the project by learning Python, which is language primarily used for scripting in finance and banking.
“After comparing different ways of implementing the desired requirements of the winter research project, I had to design code that was easy to maintain, and find and use the available Python libraries. Finally, the automatic process needed to be set-up on the Linux-server so that the webpage was able to update itself on a daily basis,” he said.
UQ Business School Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr Rand Low, supported Mr De Castro throughout his research period, as did the UQ Business School IT department.
“I lead the team to develop an operational website that analyses risk across a range of developed economies around the world. Our next phase was to develop one specifically for Australia.
“Ivan played a crucial role in developing this webpage and he exemplifies that at UQ Business School we provide the resources and mentorship for our undergraduate students to apply their skillsets in taking cutting edge research and applying it to the real-world,” Dr Low said.
“It was an amazing opportunity to learn and use a popular programming language and perform cutting-edge research in the field of finance and risk modelling.
“I would recommend any UQ student to take up the opportunity to participate in a Winter Research program as it gives one exposure to the type of work one might expect as an Honours, MPhil, or PHD researcher,” Mr De Castro said.
