Dr. Tucker Balch is an associate professor in the School of Interactive Computing and managing partner of Lucena Research (a fresh startup). Balch develops and uses statistical machine learning and data mining algorithms to augment and inform trading decisions. He teaches a course on this topic, and he has also built an open source software system to support this effort.

Balch spent a sabbatical year at Cerebellum Capital, a machine learning-based hedge fund in San Francisco, and he consults with thinkorswim (top online broker). Before joining academia, he was an F-15 pilot in the USAF.