For 3 years I served as the Director of Jump Labs, a new endeavor for cutting-edge research and recruiting launched by Jump Trading, a quantitative high frequency trading firm based in Chicago. 
Jump Labs sponsors research in high performance computing and data science via gifts grants involving:

• Mentors from Jump Trading and Jump Venture Capital portfolio companies who guide the research along with University of Illinois professors
• Jump Trading proprietary data: ~50 PB of historical market microstructure data from 60 exchanges around the world
• Supercomputer grid resources
• Office space at Jump Labs in the University of Illinois Research Park

The crux is to create a long term and powerful pipeline for talent acquisition by challenging the faculty and students with real-world problems. The structure aligns relevant industrial research with the passions and expertise of the faculty member and students. Opportunities for publication are encouraged.  In our first two years we sponsored over 60 undergraduate and graduate students and 20 professors spanning 25 projects. The structure seeks to advance relevant research and creates a powerful recruiting pipeline for talent that is long term and low risk.

We will discuss the successes and challenges encountered at Jump Labs in its first three years.