Data Scientist Lead

Yigang Zhang

Cell #: 864-***-****

E-mail: *******.***@*****.***

Summary

A PhD Economist with 15 years of experience in model development, model implementation, and model validation, especially in the mortgage and banking industries.

Professional Experience

Lead Data Scientist, PenFed, January 2025 to present

Model Owner for mortgage portfolio and auto loans, covering engagement with the external model validator (Second Pillar), with the external model developers (Black Knight, Deep Future Analytics) and communication with model users.

Data Scientist, M&T Bank, September 2024 to December 2024

Implement and execute various models for CECL/CCAR.

Prepared updates and analyzed FICO alignment.

Finalized MRM review remediation documents.

Principal, Self-employed, June 2024 to present

Provide financial modeling service as a contractor to various banks

Senior Economist/Data Scientist, Fannie Mae, January 2016-May 2024

●Developed and updated the mortgage loan level prepayment model, which leads to profile cash flow projection and then economic capital (EC) calculation. The model differentiates turnover and refinance prepay by rate incentive, and performed well prior to Covid-19.

●Developed Single-Family Forecast Model under the Agile framework, which includes constantly engaging model users for usage requests and feedback, integrating model implementation, streamlining model validation, drafting model Whitepaper, and obtaining model confirmation. Simply put, a full cycle of model development with the “fail sooner” strategy.

●Developed the delinquency level projection model, which forecasts exact number of months in delinquency within delinquent loans to be used in modification forecast.

●Developed the new acquisition model, which forecasts Fannie Mae’s share of acquisition and market acquisition volume to approximate Fannie Mae’s acquisition volume. Doing so corrected previous acquisition model’s significant error of over $100B in 5 years.

●Developed the FICO imputation model, which forecasts FICO to be used in the loss and allowance forecast in Fannie Mae’s quarterly financial reporting since 2016.

●Reviewed and provided effective challenges on qualitative assumptions registered in high risk models, including Collateral Underwriter, Desktop Underwriter, Home Price Forecast Application, Common Cash Flow Application, Single-Family Forecast Model, etc.

●Reviewed scenario design, qualitative assumptions, and results for Dodd-Frank Act Stress Testing (DFAST) and Management Stress Testing, to restore and maintain “safety and soundness” of the enterprise. Review on current expected credit losses (CECL), as a required component for both stress-testing, is also within this responsibility.

●Provided the analysis for single-family risk limit setting, to prevent the enterprise from taking excessive risk and to optimize risk-adjusted profitability.

Adjunct Faculty, Virginia International University, September 2015-December 2015

●Lectured Principles of Microeconomics to undergraduate and graduate students;

●Lectured Principles of Macroeconomics to undergraduate and graduate students;

Assistant Professor, Shandong University, China, September 2011-August 2015

●Lectured Intermediate Microeconomics and Public Economics to undergraduate students;

●Invited to lecture Advance Microeconomics to graduate students and faculties at the Ocean University of China;

Visiting Scholar, American University, April 2010-August 2011

●Conducted research on economic relation among China, Japan, and United States;

●Lectured to honorary undergraduate students in course “China, Japan, and United States”;

Visiting Research Fellow, National University of Singapore, May 2009-March 2010

●Provided consulting on various economic policies to minister level officers at Singapore and around the Southeast Asia and East Asia regions;

●Prepared two policy briefs, on China’s planned birth policy and on China’s outbound mergers and acquisitions, to Prime Minister's Office of Singapore;

●Presented two papers, on China’s planned birth policy and on China’s rural migration, in Distinguished Public Lecture Series hosted by East Asian Institute;

Research Associate, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, February 2000-August 2002

●Designed survey forms, conducted pilot surveys, finalized the survey forms;

●Led a team of 20 enumerators in conducting rural surveys across 17 provinces of China;

●Established database using Access for data entry, cleaned data and analyzed data using STATA, summarized regression results in tables and figures, prepared reports using PowerPoint;

●Projects involved included evaluation on China’s land tenure reform funded by U.S. National Science Foundation, evaluation on poverty alleviation projects in rural China funded by the World Bank, and evaluation on water management in Northern China funded by International Water Management Institute.

Education

Ph.D. in Applied Economics, Clemson University, December 2008

B.A. in Economics, Wuhan University, China, July 1999

Skills

Financial modeling, CECL, DFAST, cash flow projection, home price forecast, capital adequacy

Statistical Software and Other Software Skills

SAS, SQL, R, Python, Tableau, STATA, Word, Excel, PowerPoint

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