“The provost at Li’s school, which was one of China’s top universities, told me he had a very good student in the math department, the best student he had seen in years,” Tiao said. “He said this student was interested in going to Chicago. I spoke to our administration and was allowed to offer Li a fellowship in statistics.”
Li responded enthusiastically.
“It was definitely not the weather that brought me to Chicago,” Li said. “Rather, compared with Harvard statistics, the University of Chicago offered broad exposure to the business topics I wanted to learn more about.”
Early Career
“I came to Chicago with $100 in my pocket and a suitcase filled with cooking pans and chopsticks, I simply had to save every penny,” Li said. “The university gave me stipends and various job opportunities, along with teaching me everything about business that I know.”
Li attended Chicago Booth for three years and intended to pursue his PhD until he got an offer he couldn’t refuse. Seeking hands-on experience and a chance to help his family in China financially, Li took a leave from his studies to join Merrill Lynch. There, he initially worked on models with other PhDs. The move meant that Tiao had lost one of his best students and a collaborator.
“He was the top student in every class—and there was a very big gap between him and number two,” Tiao said. “Even his term paper was published.”
Li again proved to be a stand-out, this time in the financial world.
“As a model guy, I got a lot of praise but I was itchy to try to do the real thing, meaning actually moving money,” he said. “So I joined First Boston, now Credit Suisse, to do proprietary trading on the convertible desk. I then moved on to Toronto Dominion Bank until 2003, when I was spun-off to launch Fore Research and Management.”
Tiao’s career was also on an upward path. In 2001, he was invited to Peking University as a visiting professor, where he taught and established the school’s statistical department. He also continued his environmental work at Booth and became a member of the Ozone Science Tiger Team, an EPA-supported endeavor that conducted research on a broad range of problems in environmental statistics. In 2005, Tiao’s team received the EPA’s Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award.
As Li and Tiao pursued their separate careers, they stayed in touch. Tiao has visited Li when business has taken him to New York, and Li will look up his former mentor whenever he returns to Chicago.