HÉLYETTE GEMAN is Director of the Commodity Finance Centre at Birkbeck, University of London and Research Professor at Johns Hopkins University. She is a graduate of Ecole Normale Supérieure in Mathematics, holds a Masters degree in Theoretical Physics and a PhD in Probability from the University Pierre et Marie Curie; and a PhD in Finance from the University Paris Sorbonne.
Professor Geman has published more than 130 papers in top international finance, insurance and energy economics Journals, became in 1993 a Member of Honour of the French Society of Actuaries for her work on Catastrophic risk; received in 1994 the first Prize of the Merrill Lynch awards for her research on Asian and complex options; was named in 2004 in the Hall of Fame of Energy Risk. She has been a scientific advisor to major financial institutions, energy and mining companies and commodity houses for the last 21 years, covering the spectrum of interest rates, crude oil and natural gas, metals and agricultural, including water, fertilizers and land.
Her book Insurance and Weather Derivatives was published in 1999 by RISK Publications; her book entitled Commodities and Commodity Derivatives: Energy, Metals and Agriculturals published by Wiley Finance in 2005 has become the reference in industry and Master programmes worldwide.
Prof Geman counts among her PhD students Nassim Taleb. She is presently on the Board of a green energy company and an active participant in a 'precision farming' project involving 12,500 farmers in East Africa.

A comprehensive resource for understanding the complexities ofagricultural finance
Agricultural Finance: From Crops to Land, Water, andInfrastructure is a pioneering book that offers a comprehensiveresource for understanding the worldwide agriculture markets, fromspikes in agricultural commodity prices to trading strategies, andthe agribusiness industry generally to the challenges of feedingthe planet in particular. The book also goes in-depth on the topicsof land, water, fertilizers, biofuels, and ethanol. Written byHelyette Geman--an industry expert in commodityderivatives--this book explores the agricultural marketplaceand the cycles in agricultural commodity prices that can be the keyto investor success.
This resource addresses a wide range of other important topicsas well, including agricultural insurance, energy, shipping andbunker prices, sustainability, investments in land, subsidies,agricultural derivatives, and farming risk-management. Other topicscovered include structured products and agricultural commoditiesETFs; trade finance in an era of credit shortage; securitizationand commodity-linked notes; grains: wheat, corn, soybeans; softs:coffee, cocoa, cotton; shipping as a key component of agriculturaltrade; and the major agricultural shipping routes and the costs.The book:
* Offers the first comprehensive resource that deals with the allaspects of agricultural finance
* Includes information that is crucial for pension funds, assetmanagers, hedge funds, agribusiness corporates, CTAs andregulators
* Covers a range of topics from agricultural bunker prices,futures, options to major shipping routes and the costs
This text is a must-have resource for accessing the informationrequired to trade successfully in the agricultural marketplace.