天美传媒

Nicos聽Christofides, Emeritus Professor of Quantitative Finance at 天美传媒, passed away in 2019聽 聽

Nicos was part of the team that set up one of the world鈥檚 largest and most highly respected finance research centres,聽the Centre for Quantitative Finance, which he directed for 17 years聽before retiring in 2009.

During his time at the Centre,聽which sat聽within聽Imperial鈥檚 Management School before it聽later became the Business School, his聽focus was on supervising PhD 天美传媒 in tackling聽real-world problems in financial mathematics and risk management, helping to聽oversee聽more than聽200 doctoral 天美传媒 now working in financial centres across the globe.聽聽聽

Born in Cyprus in 1942, Nicos聽left his native country聽to study聽for his聽A Levels聽in聽Folkestone, Kent聽and in聽1960,聽began his lifelong association with Imperial College聽London,聽winning a scholarship to聽study Electrical Engineering.聽聽聽

After graduating with first class honours in 1966, he聽went on to聽complete a PhD聽entitled, 鈥溾�� under a joint supervision that involved the renowned scientist and Nobel Prize winner Dennis Gabor. Nicos was awarded the聽Ferranti medal聽for this work and had particularly fond memories of聽the聽ceremony as it was the first official event that he attended with his girlfriend and future wife, Ann.聽

The Christofides Algorithm聽

In 1968,聽he took on a聽lectureship in the Management Engineering Section of Mechanical聽Engineering at Imperial.聽Here,聽he started his work in combinatorial optimisation and graph theory.聽Nicos, together with Department Head Samuel Eilon, were pioneers in vehicle routing algorithms.聽聽

Nicos is perhaps best known for the .聽His sons still recall the months, if not years, during which the family dining room table was covered with maps, coloured pens and tracing paper as Nicos and his wife spent their evenings digitising the UK road system. remains the best worst-case scenario, and his industrial quality vehicle routing software is still used today.聽

In 1975,聽Nicos published his seminal and pioneering book 聽and shortly afterwards聽took a sabbatical in North America聽where he visited聽several universities and developed聽research projects. During the 1970s and 80s, Nicos helped create a research centre in Italy (SOGESTA, in聽Urbino), and in 1982 he became a Professor of Operational Research.聽聽聽

The 80s also saw Nicos begin his聽work on the analysis of images and as a result聽of his聽work on image compression,聽Nicos聽later聽consulted, and聽had contracts, with NASA and IBM. He聽had a unique ability of explaining elaborate and mathematically complex problems to the layman in a way that made extremely hard solutions sound easy.聽

Renaissance man

During his academic career he published over 150 papers in quality journals and four books on optimisation and quantitative 铿乶ance.聽

In addition to his work,聽Nicos聽was a聽Renaissance man with聽encyclopaedic general knowledge and a prolific reader and writer. He enjoyed both the art and science of photography and collected fountain pens and leather-bound journals where he wrote exquisite and detailed academic notes. He also had an extensive collection of marbles and聽wooden tops from his childhood.聽

In 2018,聽Nicos was devastated by the illness and death of his wife, Ann,聽but resolved to keep working聽until his death聽in 2019.聽Nicos is survived聽by his聽two sons, Alexander and Simon, and three grandchildren, Hugo, Ivan and Lola.