Our Program
At Johns Hopkins, Financial Mathematics continues a rich engineering tradition whereby the strengths of the faculty in research, education, and leadership are applied to expand knowledge and apply new knowledge for the benefit of humanity by addressing the complex problems of modern society. Understanding and navigating today’s rapidly evolving, world-wide economic and financial landscape presents one of society’s most challenging current problems.
The Field of Financial Mathematics
Financial Mathematics (commonly described using an array of roughly synonymous alternative titles including Financial Engineering, Computational Finance, Mathematical Finance, and Quantitative Finance) is an engineering discipline fundamentally enabled by the intellectual pursuits spanned by the faculty of Applied Mathematics and Statistics (AMS): probability, statistics, optimization, partial differential equations and scientific computing.
The unifying premise for Financial Mathematics is more than just a collection of techniques applied to a common problem area. Rather, it quantifies and enables much of the modern interplay in global markets among companies, investors, and financial agents; constrained or constructed by the actions of central banks, regulators and governments. Global financial agents, which include broker-dealers on Wall Street, in London, Hong Kong and elsewhere, create and package (or repackage) capital products and services into the instruments that are so vital to the course of world-wide capital allocation, investment, and risk transfer. None of this could occur today without the sophisticated approaches enabled by financial mathematics which have evolved over the past 25 years.
A Culture of Collaboration
Because of a strong university-wide commitment to collaboration, we benefit from scholarship from across the university, and particularly in the areas of business, finance, economics, computing, and management in the Carey Business School and from the Department of Economics in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, as well as from the other departments and programs in the Whiting School of Engineering.
Discover Your Path: A Closer Look at JHU’s Master’s in Financial Mathematics Program
What makes our program unique:
Broad expertise
Classes are informed by our faculty’s extensive experience in the financial industry, as well as the expertise of faculty from JHU’s Carey Business School and Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
Professional preparation
All students complete an industry internship, usually the summer after their first year.
Finance with the engineering advantage
Unlike other financial programs, ours is embedded in the Engineering School, giving you access to world-class scholars who are redefining the fields of machine and learning and data science.
We offer the courses students want
Explore our most popular master’s courses.
Take the Next Steps
Learn more about graduate studies at Hopkins Engineering. Request information about:
Program Requirements
| Course # | Course Name | Semester Typically Offered |
| EN.553.644 | Introduction to Financial Derivatives | Fall |
| EN.553.645 | Interest Rate and Credit Derivatives | Spring |
| Course # | Course Name | Semester Typically Offered |
| EN.553.613 or EN.553.636 | Applied Statistics and Data Analysis Introduction to Data Science |
Fall |
| EN.553.627 | Stochastic Processes and Applications to Finance | Fall |
| EN.553.639 | Time Series Analysis | Spring |
Of the electives –
- One elective must be in Applied Mathematics and Statistics
- Two electives must be in Financial Mathematics
- Four additional electives should be from the approved electives listing and can be Financial Mathematics, Applied Mathematics and Statistics or Free Electives.
Selection of electives must be done with advisor and Program Director approval. Students are required to take a minimum of 2 Financial Mathematics electives and 1 Applied Mathematics and Statistics Elective. Students can then chose the remaining 4 required electives from the list of approved electives. If a student wishes to have a course considered that is not on the approved elective lists they must submit the course details to their Faculty Advisor or the Academic Program Coordinator for Program Committee review.
Students can choose any of the courses listed below. Alternatively, they can choose to tailor their selection of electives based on one of the following concentrations:
- Asset Management
- Derivatives
- Fixed Income and Commodities
- Risk Management
- Quantitative, Algorithmic, High-Frequency Trading
In addition to required degree-related courses and electives, ALL financial mathematics students are required to complete the following courses/training:
- EN.553.845 Professional Pathways, each semester
- EN.553.803 Computing requirement (Financial Computing Workshop) – offered during Intersession
- Communication skills requirement (Communication Skills Practicum, which includes Fall/Spring courses)
- Internship (typically done during summer after first year in residence)
- Every student must complete training on the Responsible Conduct of Research
- Every student must complete the University Orientation and Academic Ethics course
- Orientation (REQUIRED ATTENDANCE for fall starters) – typically held the 2 weeks prior to the start of classes