Hello, my name is Hesam Aslan. Here at Wanderer in the Fog, I write about quantitative finance 💹, philosophy 🧠 and the timeless wisdom that reveals profound truths about our universe, economics 🏦, probability 🎲, statistics 📊, and investment 📈 in general. As an engineer and self-proclaimed geek, I also love anything related to technology, and I’ll try my hand at writing about new tech developments. From time to time, I might also share stories from my trips around the world.

A bit about my educational background: I received my B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in electrical engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 2001 and 2003, respectively, and my Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University in 2009. I have been an analog chip designer by trade and for more than a decade, I have been designing integrated circuits for a variety of applications from high speed communications to DNA sequencing in various Silicon Valley semiconductor firms.

Summer of 2007 while studying for my Ph.D., out of curiosity, I enrolled in a summer Business Management program (mini-MBA program for engineers) in Mays Business School. There, I got bit by the finance bug and it ignited a huge passion for quantitative finance and markets in me. I have been studying markets, finance and economics since and I’ve been attempting to apply engineering concepts to what I believe lies at the intersection of engineering and the world of finance: a constant search for signals in a sea of noise, like a wanderer walking in the fog.

Eventually, I decided to formalize my financial education and pursue a masters in financial engineering. In 2021, I received my M.Sc. in Financial Engineering from WorldQuant University (founded by Igor Tulchinsky, CEO and founder of the quantitative investment firm, WorldQuant LLC).

Welcome to Wanderer in the Fog!

The title is inspired by the iconic oil painting Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer (Wanderer above the Sea of Fog) by the German Romantic artist Casper David Friedrich—a masterpiece of its time. In the painting, a young man stands on a cliff, gazing out into a thick, mysterious fog. I am captivated by this work not only for its magnificence and beauty but also for its intriguing message. While the outlines of cliffs and trees are discernible, much of the landscape remains hidden beneath the fog.

I see the fog as a metaphor for the uncertain future that engulfs all of us and the decisions we make. Just as in the painting, there are moments when we can glimpse possible outcomes—a calculated risk—and other moments when the future is shrouded in mystery, a genuine uncertainty. It makes you wonder: aren’t we all wanderers in the fog?

This evocative imagery, reminiscent of a poem by Sophia Servis, beautifully captures the journey we all take through the uncertainty of life.

By Sophia Servis © 1991

Like an all-enveloping ghost
It wraps itself about me;
Sometimes thick, sometimes thin;
Blinding me of my destiny.

All the sounds it stifles
And encloses me in silence,
As if I were blind and deaf;
Swallowed by this thing so dense.

Then it begins to swirl about me
Like the tendrils of an octopus.
Radiant shafts of sunlight
Stream to earth in a nimbus.