About the Author

Vladimir Kushnir obtained his Ph. D. in physics at the Institute for Solid State Physics, Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Since that time, Vladimir worked as an experimental physicist, using FORTRAN, C and then C++, while working at Northwestern University and later at the Argonne National Laboratory. He then went to work with Wall Street firms, focusing mostly on calculations called “financial analytics”, and having special interest in taking a calculation and making it run faster, sometimes by an order of magnitude. He lives with his wife Daria in Connecticut and when not programming in C++, enjoys Jazz music and underwater photography in his spare time.