On April 7, 2025, Prof. Dr. Ahmet Duran, a faculty member from the Department of Mathematical Engineering Faculty of Arts and Sciences at ITU, gave the invited lecture. This conference was held within the scope of the “Pi's Cipher: Mathematics Explorers Project,” jointly carried out by the Department of Mathematics and the Mathematics Volunteers Community of Hitit University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and supported by the Youth Services Directorate (ÜNİDES) of the Ministry of Youth and Sports of the Republic of Turkey.

Mathematical and computational models play a critical role in technological development. Professor Duran talked about their research that provides mathematical solutions to complex problems from various disciplines such as petroleum engineering, mathematical finance, economics, and biomedical engineering using mathematical models. They analyze these models using various tools like differential equations, computational parameter optimizations, statistical approaches and supercomputing technologies.

Professor Duran talked about quantitative behavioral finance within the scope of Financial Literacy thematic topic, his TÜBİTAK Project Id 836038, at Sultangazi Cumhuriyet Anadolu Lisesi, Şişli Süleyman Şah Kız Anadolu İmam Hatip Lisesi and Sarıyer Mehmet Şam Mesleki ve Teknik Anadolu Lisesi, in May 2025. It was organized and supported by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK) Bilim ve Toplum Başkanlığı (Head of Science and Society Department).

Quantitative behavioral finance is a new discipline. Professor Duran is one of the pioneers of quantitative behavioral finance with his Ph.D. thesis in 2006 and Overreaction Diamonds paper (with G. Caginalp) published in Quantitative Finance in 2007. Mathematical models, differential equations, parameter optimiztion and statistical methods are used to understand asset price dynamics and behavioral biases together with valuation. Among many significant citations, Ramiah, Xu and Moosa (International Review of Financial Analysis-Elsevier, 2015) cited them as "Recently we witnessed the emergence of quantitative behavioral finance as a discipline (see, for example, Duran and Caginalp, 2007)."