Dr Cagin Ararat

Profile

I have been an Associate Professor in Financial Mathematics at the University of Leeds since January 2026.

Before joining the University of Leeds, I worked in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Bilkent University as Assistant Professor and Associate Professor from 2015-2026. I spent the academic year 2022-2023 as a Visiting Fulbright Scholar in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Southern California.

I earned my PhD from the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering at Princeton University in 2015. My dissertation was entitled “On set-valued functionals: multivariate risk measures and Aumann integrals” and Birgit Rudloff was my advisor.

In 2024, I was a receipient of the Research Incentive Award of the METU Parlar Foundation.

I have (co-)supervised 11 master’s students and one PhD student.

Research interests

I am broadly interested in vector-valued and set-valued functions in financial mathematics, optimization and stochastics. Much of my research so far has been focused on multivariate risk theory.

An incomplete list of the topics that I am interested in is given below.

• Financial Mathematics: Risk measures, multivariate risk, set-valued risk measures, systemic risk, dynamic risk measures
• Stochastics: Set-valued stochastic analysis, set-valued martingales, Aumann integrals, stochastic differential inclusions, backward stochastic differential equations
• Optimization: Set-valued convex analysis, set optimization, vector optimization, risk-averse stochastic optimization, quasiconvex functions
• Machine Learning: Black-box vector optimization, Pareto front identification, Gaussian processes, multi-objective bandit problem

During 2024-2026, part of my research is funded by the Turkish National Science Foundation (TÜBİTAK) under the Scientific and Technological Research Projects Support Program (1001) as a principle investigator.

During 2022-2023, part of my research was funded by the Fulbright Scholar Program of the U.S. Department of State, sponsored by the Turkish Fulbright Commission.

During 2018-2021, part of my research was funded by TÜBİTAK under the National Young Researchers Career Development Program (3501 - CAREER) as a principle investigator.

Qualifications

• PhD, Operations Research and Financial Engineering, Princeton University, 2015
• MA, Operations Research and Financial Engineering, Princeton University, 2015
• BSc, Industrial Engineering, Bilkent University, 2010

Professional memberships

• INFORMS
• SIAM
• Bachelier Finance Society