Michael Long graduated from Cleveland State University in 2024 with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and a minor in Statistics. During his time at Cleveland State, Michael completed an internship as a data analyst at MarshBerry, an investment bank specializing in advising mergers and acquisitions among insurance brokerages. Here, Michael was able to nurture his fascination with both finance and statistical insights, learning from data analysts, data scientists, and financial advisors. His projects included: forecasting the total insurance policies in force, researching acquisition deals, and cleaning the company's internal database. Michael has also fostered his passion for research through multiple projects. As a capstone project at Cleveland State, he fit a GARCH volatility model to forecast the market conditions of the 2020 market crash, and compared the model performance to less volatile periods. In a personal project, Michael traded options contracts for a year, an experience which gave him enhanced familiarity with the derivates markets. Continuing his path of education and research, Michael joined the Carnegie Mellon MSCF program to pursue Quantitative Research.