My college career began with enrollment in a Bachelor's degree program in "Banking Finance and Insurance Economics," with a quantitative finance focus. This path ended with a thesis on the stochastic "Black and Scholes-Merton" model applied to a credit risk analysis. I then continued my studies by enrolling in a Level II degree program in "Statistical Science for Financial and Actuarial Decisions" which concluded with a thesis on cointegrated stochastic processes and a cointegration study between two financial market indices. During these two paths, my personal and initial passion for research was accentuated, and this resulted in the decision to embark on a course of study focused exclusively on research.