Ashvin Chhabra Appointed Chief Investment Officer at Institute for Advanced Study

Princeton, N.J, May 11, 2007 -  Dr. Ashvin Chhabra, a financial investment executive, has been appointed Chief Investment Officer at the Institute for Advanced Study.  Dr. Chhabra will join the Institute on May 30 and will work closely with the Finance Committee of the Institute's Board of Trustees and Associate Director for Finance and Administration John Masten on managing the Institute's endowment.
    Dr. Chhabra began his work in investment research and financial modeling more than fourteen years ago in Chicago, and built his experience in those areas and widened his exposure to a broad range of investments in positions at Chase Manhattan and JP Morgan.  Since 2001, Dr. Chhabra has been Managing Director and Head of Wealth Management Strategies and Analytics in the Global Private Client Group at Merrill Lynch. Dr. Chhabra was selected by a search committee drawn from the Institute's Finance Committee, which is chaired by Dr. James Simons, President of Renaissance Technologies Corporation.

Of Dr. Chhabra's appointment, Peter Goddard, Director of the Institute, stated, "We are delighted to have someone with Dr. Chhabra's analytic skills, broad investment experience, and understanding of the Institute's mission join us in this crucial role.  The expertise he will bring to this new position will play an important part in ensuring the growth of the Institute's endowment, on which the ability of the Institute to continue its work depends."   
    Dr. Chhabra, who has a Ph.D. from Yale in Applied Physics, lives in Princeton with his wife and two children.

About the Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry.  The Institute exists to encourage and support fundamental scholarship - the original, often speculative, thinking that produces advances in knowledge that change the way we understand the world.  Work at the Institute takes place in four Schools:  Historical Studies, Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Social Science.  It provides for the mentoring of younger scholars by a permanent Faculty of twenty-seven, and it offers all who work there the freedom to undertake research that will make significant contributions in any of the broad range of fields in the sciences and humanities studied at the Institute.
    The Institute, founded in 1930, is a private, independent academic institution located in Princeton, New Jersey.  Its more than 5,000 former Members hold positions of intellectual and scientific leadership in the United States and abroad. Some twenty-one Nobel Laureates, and thirty-four out of forty-eight Fields Medalists, have been Institute Faculty, Members or Visitors. Many winners of the Wolf or MacArthur prizes have also been affiliated with the Institute.