AIMI fellow’s research ‘grounded in what can happen in reality’

SCRANTON, Pa. — With more than 25 years of experience in the finance industry and 15-plus years working in academia, Nonna Sorokina, Penn State Center for Applications of Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning to Industry (AIMI) fellow, Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) associate member and assistant professor of business/finance, works to bridge the gap between the finance industry and academia through research and connections. 

Before obtaining her doctorate and joining academia, Sorokina worked in the financial industry in roles related to quantitative analysis, risk management and project management. Her research over the years has focused on banking and quantitative methods in finance, including artificial intelligence and machine learning. Sorokina’s most recent work is related to social responsibility issues including green energy, the opioid epidemic and economic outcomes for underrepresented groups of population. 

“My research is very grounded in what can happen in reality,” Sorokina said. "My experiences [in the finance industry] help me create teams, facilitate collaborative projects and bring in connections. I work with professors, industry professionals and staff of different levels. Another key to success is my work with students.” 

Sorokina works with six doctoral and masters students on her research and is looking to add more students on as she has received another grant, The Presidential Strategic Initiative on Public Impact Research Award, which aims to foster interdisciplinary research with a high impact on the communities. 

“The new grant funds the project that is an extension of my prior published research related to the opioid epidemic. In this new funded initiative, we will use artificial intelligence and machine learning to forecast future problem areas and identify factors that contribute to the probability of developing a substance abuse disorder,” Sorokina said.  

Sorokina partners on this project with Dusan Ramljak, assistant professor of information science at Penn State Great Valley. 

“It’s a highly competitive grant,” Sorokina said. “We are so proud. [Interdisciplinary research] allows even those new to computational research, still leverage resources from other groups, centers and people. The expertise of various participants comes together like a puzzle and the hopes are to have something beautiful come out of it. They [the grant funding committee] commented on the interdisciplinary aspect of our team and they were excited about it.” 

In other accomplishments, Sorokina and her industry colleague Mikhail Samonov, of Two Centuries Investments, published a paper that received a lot of attention reaching top 10 downloads on SSRN Financial Economics Network in its first month. The paper, which looked at asset allocation strategies dating back to 1926, was also invited for a presentation at a joint conference for academicians and practitioners in the United Kingdom. 

“That is unusual in my discipline, having an industry person as a co-author [on a paper],” Sorokina said.  

Sorokina highlighted AIMI’s aim to connect academic faculty members to industry partners, engineers and graduate students. 

“AIMI is well equipped with vast ICDS resources,” Sorokina said. “I have collaborated with the Research Innovations with Scientists and Engineers  and the framework that they built makes a solid foundation for several research projects that continue evolving with the help of graduate student research assistants." 

Sorokina, as part of AIMI, has participated and co-sponsored two conferences, the Financial Management Association’s (FMA) 2024 Applied Finance Conference in New York City on May 10, and the AI Eria in Finance Symposium hosted by The Friends of Women in Finance in Greater New York, also in New York City, that will take place on June 6.  

The two events were developed to foster collaborations between finance professionals both in academia and industry with panel discussions, research presentations and networking opportunities.  

Panelists at the FMA Applied Conference included Sorokina’s colleagues from industry and academia as well as Gretta Kellogg, Penn State ICDS director of strategic initiatives and AIMI assistant sirector.

“It’s important ... to architecture a model of collaboration that will bring industry and academia together,” Sorokina said.