Eli Joseph ’16 went from high school to doctoral program in record time. Now, as a professor himself, he is looking to kindle enthusiasm in STEM careers in his students.
Inspired by the election of Barack Obama, an 18-year-old Elisee 鈥淓li鈥� Joseph 鈥�16 M.S. tackled his academic career with cyclonic force. 鈥淚 figured if he could become president, I had a chance of becoming successful in my own endeavors with the proper support.鈥� A math whiz, Joseph earned a bachelor鈥檚 degree in mathematics at Queens College, and then enrolled at 可乐视频, where he earned a master鈥檚 degree in business administration鈥攁ll within four short years. Joseph, who is Haitian-American, then went on to become one of the youngest people to earn a Doctorate in Business Administration (D.B.A) at Felician University. Today, at age 25, he is a faculty member at Queens College and has added Columbia University to his list of teaching jobs.
Joseph was selected by Forbes and JPMorgan Chase as a 2018 Forbes Under 30 Scholar. He is also a Grow with Google scholarship recipient, a member of the Grammy Recording Academy (GRAMMYU), a finalist in the Morgan Stanley Quantitative Finance Prize for Excellence, and a TEDx speaker.
He has pursued his goals with equal measures of tenacity and enthusiasm. After a year at Siena College in Loudonville, New York, Joseph transferred to Queens College to play basketball as a student-athlete. By spring 2014, he had switched to the track and field team. At Queens College, Joseph also worked part-time on campus, obtaining special permission to take 30 credits鈥攕even undergraduate classes and three graduate classes鈥攂efore ultimately graduating in 2015. 鈥淚t was rigorous,鈥� says the Brooklyn native. 鈥淚 had the moral support from my family鈥攎om, grandmother, brothers, and uncle鈥攂ut I lived by myself on campus.
Graduate school was an easy choice for Joseph. 鈥淎long with the excellent programs at the [Murray] Koppelman School of Business, it was convenient by subway to Wall Street, where I worked for a mortgage bank.鈥� Taking night classes, Joseph earned his M.S. in business administration in one year. 鈥淢y advisers and mentors鈥擜ssociate Professor Viju Raghupathi, who taught me business analytics, Myles Bassell, [lecturer and deputy chair in the business management department], and Georgios Koimisis [adjunct lecturer], who taught a course in econometrics鈥攈elped me lay the foundation for my decision to pursue a doctorate.鈥�
Because Joseph believed that experience in the field was just as crucial to his success as earning a doctorate, he searched for and found a school鈥擣elician University, the Franciscan University of New Jersey鈥攖hat would allow him to take the majority of his classes online, giving him more flexibility to pursue jobs and internships. 鈥淔elician is not a well-known institution,鈥� says Joseph, 鈥渂ut I鈥檇 rather go to an institution where I have more control and can make more of a personal impact. The school had just started its doctoral program in 2015; I was the first candidate to be accepted and it was made clear that I was paving the way for the other doctoral candidates behind me.鈥� His 350-page dissertation is titled The Examination of Investor Sentiment, Weather Patterns, and Stock Returns, which he successfully defended and published, receiving his doctorate degree in business administration.
In January 2017, while he worked at his doctoral degree, Joseph found himself standing in front of a class of undergraduate students at Marymount Manhattan College. He had emailed Professor Vandana Rao, the chair of the Business Department to inquire about any open positions and was told that, as a matter of fact, a finance professor had taken leave of absence for a semester. Joseph was hired as an adjunct to teach business statistics, but when he entered the classroom, the 22-year old encountered more than a little skepticism.
鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 sure we were going to gel. But as we progressed, they became more comfortable with me, but what鈥檚 more the material I was teaching. I also wanted to provide professional insights, give them real-world context,鈥� he says. 鈥淭oward the end of the course I worked with them on interview etiquette, resumes, and cover letters so that they had the tools to seek internships during the summer.鈥� By August 2017, Joseph was also working as an adjunct economics professor at Queens College.
Joseph鈥檚 academic career had gained momentum, and opportunities outside of academia soon followed. He began consulting as a statistician on quantitative projects for Fortune 500 companies. He was asked to work on a project for pharmaceutical company Pfizer by his research adviser, David Turi, the associate dean of undergraduate business programs at Felician University. He won a Grow with Google computer programming scholarship sponsored by Google and Udacity. He was a finalist in a Quantitative Finance Prize for Excellence sponsored by Morgan Stanley. He enrolled in and passed the Credential of Readiness (CORe) program at the Harvard Business School Online. Last fall he was selected to join the 2018 Forbes Under 30 Scholar Program. Joseph was featured on the cover of a special issue of the magazine with the headline 鈥淥verachievers Under 30.鈥� The label of overachiever sometimes comes with a negative connotation. He doesn鈥檛 see himself that way:
鈥淚f you want to succeed and you are currently attending a school that is not well-known for its programs, no matter how excellent they are, often you have to do what is perceived as overachieving, on and off campus,鈥� says Joseph. He also believes in leaving lasting impressions; it鈥檚 what helped him get his present job as a faculty associate in the Applied Analytics Department at Columbia University鈥攐ne of his fellow colleagues at Columbia University served as a dissertation committee member and recommended him for the job.
Joseph measures success by how much a person may evolve in his or her field, or life. His plan is to expand upon the concept of sports analytics in real-life sports, particularly the NBA. But teaching remains at the forefront, his way to reach out to students not that far away in age from him and stoke any spark of enthusiasm for careers in math. 鈥淎s I teach, I realize that there is a cool factor to analytics that I鈥檇 like to use to reach young people. I want to get them immersed in and excited about STEM careers.鈥�
