Balyasny reshuffled its applied AI team after its head of research moved into trading

Even if you're working on cutting edge applied AI in a hedge fund, you're not technically front office. That doesn't mean you can't make the switch, as one of Balyasny's most senior researchers just proved. 

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Peter Anderson, who was most recently head of research for applied AI at the fund, has now become head of autonomous strategies within its fundamental equities. Anderson joined Balyasny from Google, but briefly worked as a graduate equity researcher for Credit Suisse before going back to school for a machine learning PhD. 

Autonomous strategies in a fundamental team seems somewhat oxymoronic. Balyasny didn't respond to a request for comment, but Anderson's role may be focused on taking the fundamental research of Balyasny's equities researchers and translating it into trading algorithms. The fund has a separate systematic trading division run by Francine Fang.

Balyasny's chief AI officer Charlie Flanagan is also a Google alum and has filled Anderson's role with one more Googler. Balyasny's new head of research is San Francisco-based Gearoid Murphy who was a senior researcher in the tech firm's innovation lab, X (not the app). He most recently was CTO of a project focused on using AI "to reduce waste, fragility, and inefficiency in the global supply chain." Murphy has a PhD in 'evolutionary algorithms' and also worked in the video game industry with physics engine provider Havok.

The fund also hired Itamar Kestenbaum in New York. He joined a senior AI engineer and was most recently a senior engineer in the infrastructure team at Meta in New Jersey. Before that, he spent several years working across tech firms in Israel.

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