Nerd Nite Charlotte returns to Divine Barrel Brewing Friday, August 21, at 7pm, Featuring:
Ian Guthrie has over 20 years of experience across analytics, pricing, IT, and business strategy. He’s built a diverse career driving data-led transformation and operational success; with a leadership background includeing serving as a pricing leader for three companies and directing analysis and business intelligence initiatives for over a decade. As a Certified Fraud Examiner, he also applied forensic accounting expertise at a Washington, D.C., firm. Since 2013, Ian has advised roughly 20 clients as a management consultant while maintaining a strong technical foundation in IT—having developed around 30 custom business applications and led enterprise-scale implementations for platforms like SAP, Oracle, DB2, and Google BigQuery. He started developing trading systems around 2010 and developed over 100 different trading related algorithms. He started live trading various HFT systems in June 2025.
Ian was formerly very active in the Charlotte Standup comedy scene – but lately not so much. From 2005-2008 he helped start and run a mic off and on at a place called SK Net. This later became Crown Station and moved to NoDa. He still dabbles from time to time. He started working in cartoon animation in 2024, and has been making his own animated cartoons for a couple of years
“Adventures in High Frequency Trading”
Ian and his wife, Ashly, will present an overview of high-frequency trading (HFT), tracing its evolution by comparing past and present markets before diving into the mechanics of “seeking alpha” and avoiding “fool’s gold.” It highlights the technology required to build these systems as well as risk management, common technical bugs, and the psychological demands on traders. Finally, it wraps up by examining the current state of HFT and outlining potential future directions for the industry.
Zoe Van Kirk and Juliet McGee are licensed therapists at Grey Embraced Psychology, a Charlotte practice that believes healing doesn’t have to fit inside a box. Together, they specialize in trauma, anxiety, depression and personality disorders using evidence-based approaches that are anything but cookie-cutter.
Zoe is a Certified Therapeutic Game Master and Dungeon Master who loves making neuroscience tangible through tabletop role-playing games and other creative interventions. They have a special passion for supporting people in high-demand professions, including healthcare workers and first responders, and for making therapy more engaging and accessible to neurodivergent communities.
Juliet is the founder of Grey Embraced Psychology, a practice built on the idea that life rarely exists in black and white. She believes exceptional therapy can be both scientifically grounded and down-to-earth, creative and unconventional. Juliet works with couples and individuals, with a focus on supporting couples navigating fertility and individuals working through trauma, utilizing a diverse toolkit of evidence-based therapies, personalized to each client’s goals.
Together, Zoe and Juliet created Roll for Resilience, where neuroscience meets imagination and healing happens through dice, dragons & collaborative storytelling. By blending evidence-based psychology with TTRPGs, they challenge the idea that therapy has to look one certain way, proving that growth can happen in the most unexpected places.
Calling all Nerds! Anyone interested in speaking about anything from Astrophysics to Kaiju Zoology, check out our presentation guidelines HERE.
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