Josh Panknin is currently a member of the Center for Artificial Intelligence in Business Analysis and Financial Technology where he serves as the Director of Real Estate Artificial Intelligence Research & Innovation in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University. He joined Columbia in 2016 and is the former Director of Real Estate Technology Initiatives at SEAS.  His focus is on creating systems that flow from detailed problem understanding, data collection, data processing, data engineering, and modeling using artificial intelligence and machine learning in order to make more insightful decisions.

Prior to academics, Josh spent 12 years in various roles in real estate.  He was Head of Credit Modeling and Analytics at Deutsche Bank’s secondary CMBS trading desk where he helped develop and implement automated models for valuing CMBS loans and bonds.  He also spent time at the Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group and in various other roles in research, acquisitions, and redevelopment.  Josh has a master’s degree in finance from San Diego State University, a master’s degree in real estate finance from New York University’s Schack Institute of Real Estate, and is currently pursuing degrees in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science at Columbia University.