So Vinny, the high school graduate from New Jersey with hair coming up from under his shirt, now had to run his bond trades next to a PhD from MIT who could use mathematical models to understand the option value of the security.

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Among his degrees are a BA in Mathematics and BS in Molecular Biology from the University of California, San Diego and a PhD in Biology from MIT.

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Jeremy Brown, who was graduated from MIT in 1995 and got a PhD there in 2002, remembers when a student broke her arm in a mud-wrestling pit at a party.

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