January 15, 2026
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Quantitative researchers (QRs) at Citadel’s Equity Quantitative Research (EQR) strategy are part of a dynamic, fast-growing systematic investing platform.
Mathematical rigor, economic reasoning and large-scale data analysis enable them to discover insights that drive investment strategies.
“Market research is about understanding how the world really works,” Hua Zheng explained. As Head of Market Impact Research, she has spent her career studying how prices form and how market participants interact. “It is a deeply human and deeply analytical endeavor. The more you understand, the more intriguing it becomes.”
QRs build models that explain and predict market behavior. They explore signals across multiple time horizons, assemble hypotheses rooted in economic intuition and test those ideas against vast datasets. Their work shapes how strategies are designed and how capital is deployed.
They work within small, highly collaborative teams paired with quantitative developers (QDs) to test ideas rapidly, scale them efficiently and translate them into production-ready systems. This shared-ownership model is fundamental to EQR’s culture. Insight, experimentation and iteration occur continuously.
For Hua, this was a meaningful pivot from her previous world of academic research. “In academia, you spend years refining a theory,” she said. “In industry, the market gives you immediate feedback. That pace makes the work sharper, faster and more rewarding.”
EQR’s strategies operate at a significant scale, which means even small improvements in understanding can translate into meaningful competitive advantage. The quality of a model affects how much of a portfolio manager’s hypothesis is captured in practice. Every decision—from data selection to modeling assumptions to execution design—has commercial impact.
QRs contribute directly to the firm’s ability to identify idiosyncratic signals, decode behavioral patterns and navigate the complexity of modern markets. Their insights support investment decisions across a wide range of horizons and market conditions.
“Real-world outcomes depend on how people respond,” Hua said. “Our job is to understand those responses and build models that predict them accurately. That allows us to realize the value of our ideas.”
Within the broader QR discipline sits a highly specialized group that focuses on one of the most commercially critical components of systematic investing: market impact.
Market impact refers to how trading affects prices. Buying tends to push prices up. Selling tends to push them down. These effects create execution costs and shape every strategy’s realized return. The Market Impact Research team studies these dynamics with precision, modeling how responses vary across securities, times of day and market environments.
Hua’s team examines questions like:
Their work serves as a foundation for portfolio construction and systematic trading.
“Market impact research requires depth,” Hua said. “It takes time, data, compute and a team with complementary expertise. EQR provides all of that. We are building models that shape how strategies are executed every day.”
This discipline illustrates EQR’s belief in foundational research and its commitment to giving niche teams the space, resources and trust required to pursue the most complex problems in systematic investing.
QRs collaborate constantly across portfolio construction, forecasting research, data analysis and quantitative development. Teams debate ideas, refine models and challenge each other to think more deeply. This environment fosters creativity and accelerates discovery.
For Hua’s team, collaboration extends even further. Market impact touches almost every part of the investment process, which means forging close partnerships with colleagues in optimization, trading and infrastructure.
“Every day I see the power of complementary skill sets,” she said. “Someone may know optimal transport. Someone else may know limit order books. Another person may be an expert in algorithm design. When you put those perspectives together, the insights are better than any one person could produce.”
Researchers thrive at EQR when they combine technical depth with intellectual curiosity and sound judgment. They must be able to interrogate results, validate intuition with data and adapt quickly when the market reveals something new.
Great QRs not only generate ideas; they understand how those ideas interact with the realities of trading, risk and execution. They work seamlessly with QDs to ensure that models scale effectively and perform reliably in production.
Hua also emphasizes the importance of perspective. Her team includes people from physics, math, statistics, economics, operations research and machine learning. “When you bring together people who think differently,” she said, “you unlock entirely new ways of seeing a problem.”
EQR is a place where strong talent is recognized early and trusted with meaningful responsibility. Researchers have the freedom to specialize in depth and the access to collaborate broadly. Hua experienced this firsthand.
In previous roles, she gained breadth. At EQR, she found a place to build mastery.
“You become exceptional by going deep,” she said. “And EQR creates a platform for that depth. At the same time, you work alongside other best-in-class researchers, so your understanding of the entire investment process expands.”
As the business grows and new strategies emerge, opportunities scale with it. Researchers shape the platform’s evolution and influence how the firm competes.
As Hua summed it up, “Foundational research takes time and investment. EQR gives us the platform to do that work and make it truly impactful.”
