Cara Spicer is currently a  Professor of Practice in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech as well as the Faculty Lead for the FinTech and Big Data Analytics major. Cara has been teaching full-time in Pamplin since 2015, and as an adjunct from 2012 to 2015.

Prior to teaching at Virginia Tech, Cara was a Senior Financial Portfolio Manager at large U.S. Utilities such as Duke Energy and Utilicorp United. Cara’s expertise is in energy commodities, portfolio management, market-making, proprietary trading and risk management.

Since arriving at Virginia Tech, Cara has taught Derivatives, developed, and taught the Financial Modeling Course, and co-developed the FinTech and Big Data Analytics major with Dr. Singal and Dr. Kadlec. She has won numerous teaching awards during her tenure at Virginia Tech including the Herakovich Teaching Award, the Virginia Tech University Teaching Award, and the Finance Department Teaching Award. Cara holds both undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of Virginia but considers herself a loyal and dedicated Hokie.

Dan Rodriguez is currently a Professor of Practice in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. Dan teaches Equity Securities Analysis and Investments: Debt, Equity and Derivatives. He has taught both as a full-time faculty member and as an adjunct for over twenty years in business schools, including eleven years at NYU. Dan has also worked full-time in the financial services industry for over twenty-one years.

Prior to joining the faculty at Virginia Tech, Dan was the Chief Risk Officer and a research economist at two hedge funds, P. Schoenfeld Asset Management and Light Sky Macro. His responsibilities included the active management and trading of the firm’s hedge portfolio consisting of equity and fixed income derivatives.

He also worked as a Senior Risk Officer at multi-strategy hedge fund, Point 72 Asset Management, with responsibility for equity long short risk management and portfolio construction. Dan also served as the Chief Risk Officer for the Global Proprietary Trading group at Credit-Suisse with responsibility for managing all cross-asset class positions in the management trading portfolio. He earned his undergraduate degree at the United States Military Academy and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.