MINERVA VOICES

A Conversation with Minerva Graduate Alumnus Ramshreyas Rao

Introducing Ram, a Master in Decision Analysis alumnus.

December 20, 2022

​​This is part of a series of profiles introducing alumni from Minerva’s Master in Decision Analysis (MDA). If you would like to learn more about our programs, please visit our website.

"I was not planning to enroll in a Master's degree. I did it anyway, and it changed everything."

Before joining Minerva, Ramshreyas Rao (Ram) worked as a software consultant in the social sector, building monitoring systems aimed at gathering data for large-scale projects in India. Because the purpose of the data collection was to make information-driven decisions, Ram quickly became fascinated by decision-making and data science. When he first heard of Minerva, it immediately struck him how the Master of Science in Decision Analysis (MDA) program was designed to teach essential skills for carrying out tasks in the intersection of those two fields.

"It is not only such a good combination of application-orientedness but also a higher level of analysis and a heavy dose of meta-analysis where you are thinking about how you approach the problem."

Throughout the program, Ram realized that quantitative finance was a field he was deeply passionate about as he discovered a fascinating space in cryptocurrency to make use of decision-making tools.

"I feel like the course not only gave me a set of skills to apply to some subject area but also a perspective on what I want to do in life."

Halfway through the program, Ram was able to put the tools he had already gained from classes and start a new job, working as a research analyst at Messari, a leading market intelligence product provider that drives high-conviction participation in the crypto economy.

Given his fascination with quantitative finance, Ram decided to personalize his learnings by customizing projects he was working on as part of the MDA program to be centered on financial engineering. He chose to focus his Master's thesis on a perpetual swap, a cryptocurrency protocol inspired by the work of the Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Robert Shiller. Since the protocol takes a complex system approach driven by the actions of traders, the market, and stocks, in order to price things that are either illiquid or difficult to trade, Ram decided to model the entire system, create a simulation, and reproduce some of the market behaviors—having gained the tools needed to create it through Minerva’s classes.

"By the time I graduated, I was able to build up a portfolio of my work in crypto, write a thesis centered on crypto-investigation, and get a job in the quantitative finance field."

One of Ram's favorite aspects of Minerva's MDA program was the willingness to abandon hundreds of years of tradition and take a modern approach to education.

"It is crazy that we have so many years of education research and it is not applied to the way education is delivered. The world has changed completely, but how we educate others has not changed at all."

Another aspect of Minerva's curriculum that particularly intrigued Ram was the flipped classroom model, where the purpose of in-class time is to practice rather than introduce the material. Ram found Minerva’s use of Big Questions—broad discussion topics used as a way to familiarize students with the context for their exploration—especially beneficial while working in the social sector. Moreover, understanding the difference between content and skills, the transfer of the applicability of those skills across various regimes of content, as well as the diversity of students and faculty, distinguishes Minerva, according to Ram, from traditional institutions.

"What you gain from Minerva is exposure to those fascinating people . . . Getting to meet individuals from all over the world and debating together over complex ideas gives you an appreciation for the fact that there is a much wider range of points of view on any subject."

After defending his thesis, Ram started his career as a quantitative analyst in the Zurich-based crypto ETF (investment fund traded on stock exchanges) provider company, which uses those funds to enable the trade of cryptocurrencies in a regular stock exchange. Ram’s work focuses on building the tools that allow the construction of ETPs (exchange-traded products) through detailed quantitative analysis, in terms of both monitoring and performance.

In the future, Ram plans to utilize the skills he acquired at Minerva to continue to develop as a quantitative analyst in the finance industry and apply them to the social problems he used to work with in the past. He points out that those two fields can learn much from each other, especially when it comes to uncertainty, which is at the heart of all problems the world is facing nowadays.

“There are two things one can rely on. One of them is reason, but it cannot produce anything unless it is given the second one—data. However, we will not necessarily come to the right conclusions if it is bad data. Leaders, especially nowadays, do not have a choice but to rely on the analysis of this data to make decisions.”

Quick Facts

Name
Country
Class
Major

Social Sciences & Business

Business & Computational Sciences

Business and Social Sciences

Social Sciences and Business

Computational Sciences & Social Sciences

Computer Science & Arts and Humanities

Business and Computational Sciences

Business and Social Sciences

Natural Sciences

Arts and Humanities

Business, Social Sciences

Business & Arts and Humanities

Computational Sciences

Natural Sciences, Computer Science

Computational Sciences

Arts & Humanities

Computational Sciences, Social Sciences

Computational Sciences

Computational Sciences

Natural Sciences, Social Sciences

Social Sciences, Natural Sciences

Data Science, Statistics

Computational Sciences

Business

Computational Sciences, Data Science

Social Sciences

Natural Sciences

Business, Natural Sciences

Business, Social Sciences

Computational Sciences

Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Computational Sciences, Natural Sciences

Natural Sciences

Computational Sciences, Social Sciences

Business, Social Sciences

Computational Sciences

Natural Sciences, Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences

Arts & Humanities, Social Science

Social Sciences, Business

Arts & Humanities

Computational Sciences, Social Science

Natural Sciences, Computer Science

Computational Science, Statistic Natural Sciences

Business & Social Sciences

Computational Science, Social Sciences

Social Sciences and Business

Business

Arts and Humanities

Computational Sciences

Social Sciences

Social Sciences and Computational Sciences

Social Sciences & Computational Sciences

Social Sciences & Arts and Humanities

Computational Science

Minor

Computational Science & Business

Economics

Social Sciences

Concentration

Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence & Cognition, Brain, and Behavior

Designing Societies & New Ventures

Strategic Finance & Data Science and Statistics

Brand Management and Designing Societies

Data Science & Economics

Machine Learning

Cells, Organisms, Data Science, Statistics

Arts & Literature and Historical Forces

Artificial Intelligence & Computer Science

Cells and Organisms, Mind and Emotion

Economics, Physics

Managing Operational Complexity and Strategic Finance

Global Development Studies and Brain, Cognition, and Behavior

Scalable Growth, Designing Societies

Business

Drug Discovery Research, Designing and Implementing Policies

Historical Forces, Cognition, Brain, and Behavior

Artificial Intelligence, Psychology

Designing Solutions, Data Science and Statistics

Data Science and Statistic, Theoretical Foundations of Natural Science

Strategic Finance, Politics, Government, and Society

Data Analysis, Cognition

Brand Management

Data Science and Statistics & Economics

Cognitive Science & Economics

Data Science and Statistics and Contemporary Knowledge Discovery

Internship
Higia Technologies
Project Development and Marketing Analyst Intern at VIVITA, a Mistletoe company
Business Development Intern, DoSomething.org
Business Analyst, Clean Energy Associates (CEA)

Conversation

​​This is part of a series of profiles introducing alumni from Minerva’s Master in Decision Analysis (MDA). If you would like to learn more about our programs, please visit our website.

"I was not planning to enroll in a Master's degree. I did it anyway, and it changed everything."

Before joining Minerva, Ramshreyas Rao (Ram) worked as a software consultant in the social sector, building monitoring systems aimed at gathering data for large-scale projects in India. Because the purpose of the data collection was to make information-driven decisions, Ram quickly became fascinated by decision-making and data science. When he first heard of Minerva, it immediately struck him how the Master of Science in Decision Analysis (MDA) program was designed to teach essential skills for carrying out tasks in the intersection of those two fields.

"It is not only such a good combination of application-orientedness but also a higher level of analysis and a heavy dose of meta-analysis where you are thinking about how you approach the problem."

Throughout the program, Ram realized that quantitative finance was a field he was deeply passionate about as he discovered a fascinating space in cryptocurrency to make use of decision-making tools.

"I feel like the course not only gave me a set of skills to apply to some subject area but also a perspective on what I want to do in life."

Halfway through the program, Ram was able to put the tools he had already gained from classes and start a new job, working as a research analyst at Messari, a leading market intelligence product provider that drives high-conviction participation in the crypto economy.

Given his fascination with quantitative finance, Ram decided to personalize his learnings by customizing projects he was working on as part of the MDA program to be centered on financial engineering. He chose to focus his Master's thesis on a perpetual swap, a cryptocurrency protocol inspired by the work of the Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Robert Shiller. Since the protocol takes a complex system approach driven by the actions of traders, the market, and stocks, in order to price things that are either illiquid or difficult to trade, Ram decided to model the entire system, create a simulation, and reproduce some of the market behaviors—having gained the tools needed to create it through Minerva’s classes.

"By the time I graduated, I was able to build up a portfolio of my work in crypto, write a thesis centered on crypto-investigation, and get a job in the quantitative finance field."

One of Ram's favorite aspects of Minerva's MDA program was the willingness to abandon hundreds of years of tradition and take a modern approach to education.

"It is crazy that we have so many years of education research and it is not applied to the way education is delivered. The world has changed completely, but how we educate others has not changed at all."

Another aspect of Minerva's curriculum that particularly intrigued Ram was the flipped classroom model, where the purpose of in-class time is to practice rather than introduce the material. Ram found Minerva’s use of Big Questions—broad discussion topics used as a way to familiarize students with the context for their exploration—especially beneficial while working in the social sector. Moreover, understanding the difference between content and skills, the transfer of the applicability of those skills across various regimes of content, as well as the diversity of students and faculty, distinguishes Minerva, according to Ram, from traditional institutions.

"What you gain from Minerva is exposure to those fascinating people . . . Getting to meet individuals from all over the world and debating together over complex ideas gives you an appreciation for the fact that there is a much wider range of points of view on any subject."

After defending his thesis, Ram started his career as a quantitative analyst in the Zurich-based crypto ETF (investment fund traded on stock exchanges) provider company, which uses those funds to enable the trade of cryptocurrencies in a regular stock exchange. Ram’s work focuses on building the tools that allow the construction of ETPs (exchange-traded products) through detailed quantitative analysis, in terms of both monitoring and performance.

In the future, Ram plans to utilize the skills he acquired at Minerva to continue to develop as a quantitative analyst in the finance industry and apply them to the social problems he used to work with in the past. He points out that those two fields can learn much from each other, especially when it comes to uncertainty, which is at the heart of all problems the world is facing nowadays.

“There are two things one can rely on. One of them is reason, but it cannot produce anything unless it is given the second one—data. However, we will not necessarily come to the right conclusions if it is bad data. Leaders, especially nowadays, do not have a choice but to rely on the analysis of this data to make decisions.”