Eugene Tang, 28, Class of 2016
Background:
Tang earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Princeton University, while also fulfilling requirements for the undergraduate certificate at the Center for Statistics and Machine Learning (CSML) and the engineering and management systems certificate at the Department of Operations Research and Financial Engineering. In 2020, he earned a master’s degree in information and data science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Current Work:
Currently, Tang is a quantitative researcher at Citadel, a leading alternative investment firm, where he works closely with a team of other researchers and engineers. Together, they apply advanced statistical and quantitative modeling techniques to vast quantities of data to identify and capture investment opportunities.
“I take a quantitative approach towards investing at Citadel,” Tang said. “We look at various datasets to inform trading decisions - there is a lot of rich data that's out there in the world. A lot of my work involves creating data models that help inform computers on how to trade.”
Earlier in his career, Tang worked as a quantitative software engineer in natural language processing at Two Sigma, a hedge fund that’s known for its integration of technology and data science. He joined the company after he graduated from Princeton.
In between his stints at Two Sigma and Citadel, Tang worked part-time as a data analyst at Giving Assistant, formerly a shopping start-up business, and he contributed to Towards Data Science, an influential online magazine for sharing data science concepts and ideas. One of his articles describes an image-to-text algorithm he created to generate captions for New Yorker cartoons.
While he was a student at Princeton, Tang interned at Sandia National Laboratories, Bloomberg L.P. and Two Sigma.
Undergraduate Work:
For his undergraduate senior thesis, Tang worked on a natural language processing mechanism to find signs of depression on Twitter with Christiane Fellbaum, a computer science professor, serving as his thesis advisor. The project also fulfilled his CSML independent work requirement.
“At the time of the project, people were becoming more aware about the importance of mental health, and this is what inspired my thesis,” he said.
On the CSML undergraduate certificate, Tang said the curriculum gave him a good foundation to learn more complex topics.
“The field of machine learning has been changing so rapidly. What was the state of the art when I was in college is not any longer. The certificate curriculum gave me a very solid foundation, and that's helped me pick up new techniques very quickly,” he said.
“I think what Princeton does well in general is providing the foundation for topics,” he continued. “You learn, for example, why a linear regression is approached a certain way.”
Future Goals:
Tang plans on staying in the alternative investment industry for the foreseeable future, but at some point, he would like to try his hand at teaching, which he has come to enjoy through volunteering and mentoring.
Extracurricular Activities:
On campus, Tang played the viola for the Princeton Chamber Orchestra and was an editor and writer for Princeton Innovation Magazine.
Currently, Tang enjoys running, hiking and solving the New York Times crossword puzzle.