Dr Andrey Afanasiev is the Chair of the Department of Economics and Finance and Director of the MSc in Digital Finance and MSc in Financial Services. He is an Associate Professor of Finance and Risk Management at the University of Limassol. He received his PhD in Mathematics from the Steklov Institute of Mathematics and a PhD in Finance from the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dr Afanasiev has more than 25 years of experience in international banking and risk management, covering Europe, emerging markets, and the Gulf region. His research and teaching interests include investments, financial and derivatives markets, stochastic finance, risk modelling methods, artificial intelligence, and machine learning with applications in financial services.