Air Force pilot. Professor. Wall Street investor. Robotics engineer. Entrepreneur.
We’ve all seen actors playing these roles on screen, but that can only give us a glimpse into the lived reality of these professions. In any career, there is knowledge privy only to those people who have experienced them—muscle memories that can only develop from having walked the walk.
What does it feel, look, and sound like to pound the pavement of Wall Street on a frenetic weekday morning? To design the eyes of the Mars Rover and share visions of a foreign planet with the rest of the world? What does it feel like to be airborne in a vessel that can go 1,875 miles per hour? (Hint: sweaty).
In what is already a rarified collection of professionals, somehow Professor in the Practice and Research of Finance Tucker Balch can tell you what it’s like to be option E: all of the above.
From Space Dreams to Earthside Innovations
At their core, these disparate fields all push the boundaries of literal and figurative frontiers.
This fascination with frontiers began in childhood, when Balch watched live on a grainy black and white television as Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin hopped along the moon’s surface. The space race has a special place in his heart, having grown up in central Florida not far from Cape Canaveral.
“I saw the launch of Apollo 11, a Saturn 5. The ground shakes,” he recalls, his awe still palpable.
Witnessing humanity leaving the confines of earth left an indelible mark on Balch. He resolved that space exploration was the most compelling cause moving humankind forward, and he was eager to contribute.
Unlike other professions, opting to become an astronaut didn’t come with a cut-and-dried career path. In an early demonstration of his penchant for data analytics, Balch did his research, and noted that there were two key features that statistically improved one’s chance of becoming an astronaut: being a former fighter pilot and having a PhD.
So that is what he did. Balch was hairsbreadth from a life devoted to outer space, but in a final round of interviews for NASA, a minor health aberration ended his bid. Still, his case embodies the classic adage to “shoot for the moon—even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars:” while he did not physically make it to space, his handiwork did. His robotics prowess designed those optical systems used by the Mars Rover, allowing scientists—and everyone else—to lay eyes on Mars as well.
Meanwhile, earthside, Balch found a half dozen new frontiers to explore.
“Sense, Think, Act”
So what is it like to fly a fighter jet? On Balch’s LinkedIn profile, his cheeky description of his stint in the Air Force is characterized as “flying super fast with hair on fire, high-G turns, loops, rolls, upside down.” But he says some movies, like the second Top Gun, do capture the essence of the experience.
“A big difference between what people imagine and what is real is that it’s physical,” says Balch. “You’re sweating, your flight suit is wet, you’re worn out. It’s like football.”
While most of his other career pursuits might not be as physically draining as flying an F-15, there are psychological components to flying a fighter jet that do connect to the rest of his resume: the art of rapid decision making.
As a fighter pilot, you may not always be going Mach 2, but you’re often going hundreds of miles an hour, and you have to make decisions very quickly. A key thing learned in aviation is that it’s not about a perfect decision, but a pretty good decision quickly.
Tucker Balch
“That same concept is used in robotics. The robot doesn’t have time to calculate a perfect decision; it needs to balance sensing the world, thinking about it and acting on it. I carry that ‘sense, think, act’ mindset into my work with AI and also in finance, in terms of investing. Observe the market, ponder it, and then act.”
Balch admits that if he could repeat any part of his career, he wouldn’t mind flying the F-15 some more—not just for the thrill, but for the mental clarity it requires.
“A lot of people are into transcendental meditation. They cultivate the ability to shut out the world, and their anxieties and worries are gone—that’s exactly what I’d feel when I sat in an F-15. I couldn’t think about my PhD when I sat in that plane. You have to focus 100 percent on flying. That was a separate and kind of magical feeling,”—although, Balch jokes, driving around icy Atlanta roads in this past winter’s storms gave him a run for his money.
Better Living through Artificial Intelligence
The landscape of innovation has changed considerably in the past several decades. After earning his PhD, Balch worked as an assistant research professor at Carnegie Mellon. Long before it was on the average person’s radar in the early aughts, artificial intelligence beckoned to Balch, luring him from the robotics lab to the business sector as he helped develop algorithms to improve investment strategies and eventually co-founded his own company, Lucena Research. He’s eager to finally have more people on board the AI train.
““I wish everybody would get an account on ChatGPT or something like it, and just try it. I use it to edit emails periodically, to make sure I’m nailing the right tone.”
Ask yourself, could AI do this for me? And you’ll discover how much it can do. Plan your day, schedule a trip. You don’t have to understand AI to use it. ChatGPT is 20 dollars a month, and I can’t think of any subscription more valuable.
Tucker Balch
Compared to frontiers like outer space and Mach 2 travel, Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are far more accessible. Like amateur scientists in centuries past stumbling upon specimens in the wild and bringing them under the microscope to make critical discoveries, any curious person can move the lens of an LLM and uncover something interesting.
“I think the capabilities of AI are plateauing—it’s maybe 100 times better than it was two years ago, and two years from now, it’ll be 120 times better. But we’re just getting started on discovering the new and different ways we can apply the technology we already have. This is where people have the opportunity to change the world. People ask, ‘what problem do you want AI to have solved in ten years?’ but my first concern is solving the problem of everyone having access to AI. It will enable society to work better. If you go to lesser developed parts of the world, there isn’t wired internet available or many home computers, but so many people have cell phones, which provides them a channel to AI. There’s lots of potential there.”
More than Making Money
Balch also believes that the intersection of AI and finance has the ability to contribute to the common good. While many dismiss finance as simply making money, the reality is that everyone on an individual level has a financial future whether they’re interested in it or not, and AI has the potential to help them change that future.
“It’s hard to find a wealth advisor who will work with someone who has 100k in the bank or less,” Balch explains. “And those people need this advice, maybe more than anyone else. Bringing AI to the table to help advise people can be a great benefit to them, and to society in general.”
AI is also a crucial weapon in the fight against financial fraud.
“At JP Morgan, we used AI in a number of different ways to detect fraud, especially in looking for signs of money laundering. You can do that by looking at data manually, but AI helps you make sense of that data a lot faster.”
Another way AI is transforming finance is by identifying manipulative trading behavior.
“Traders can manipulate the market in subtle and sophisticated ways, making it difficult to detect. AI can spot these patterns and prevent bad actors from taking advantage of the system.”
In the ever-evolving world of finance, AI is not just a tool for optimization—it can be a force for greater transparency and accessibility.
Those Who Can Do More, Teach
Teaching is one of the other threads connecting Balch’s storied career path and it was this—“the spark you see in someone’s eyes when they learn something,”—that brought him to Emory.
“I love teaching,” says Balch. “I’ve been blessed to have good teachers. That moment when you suddenly understand something you didn’t before, how empowering that is; I want to pass that on to students as well.”
Balch has taught in corporate as well as academic settings, most recently at Georgia Tech. He brings back a valuable lesson for Emory students from his forays into emerging career paths.
“In a lot of cases, there’s no prescriptive answer. You have to build and test, and that’s how you discover things you wouldn’t have otherwise. I want to facilitate that for the students. I’ll give my students a problem to solve without all the details they need to solve it. I want to give them a framework, but I give them problems where they will discover something surprising. My goal is to help them discover something they didn’t expect to find.”
The classroom is no exception to AI’s ever-expanding reach. Balch is keen on preparing students for an AI-driven future; while he doesn’t believe AI will force many people out of work, those workers who don’t use AI will be replaced by the ones who do. As AI continues to evolve, Balch advocates for its responsible and widespread use while preparing the next generation to harness its potential. As a teacher, he has also been required to adapt and embrace the acceptance of ambiguity that he preaches—in how to approach assessment, for example.
“Students are inextricably engaged in AI. I tell them, ‘if you don’t have a ChatGPT account, go get one; if you don’t, you’re gonna be left in the dust.’ We need to be responsible with AI use. It will lie to you, and it will lie to you confidently. I strive to have them discover that fact for themselves.”
You are ultimately responsible for the content that is attached to your name: in the past, a student may have gotten away by saying ‘my dog ate my homework,’ but these days you aren’t excused by saying, ‘AI lied to me.’
Tucker Balch
He also warns them that while AI is a powerful tool, it requires scrutiny.
“Questions of privacy and ownership will become more front and center,” says Balch. “AI can triangulate—it’s able to piece together a lot of disparate pieces of information in a way that makes people nervous. And the general public is catching on to the way that big companies are using AI.”
“We can look forward to a lot of interesting legislation,” Balch predicts.
Looking Ahead: Lessons from a Life of Exploration
At Emory, Balch finds himself among students who embody the adaptability and curiosity that the future demands.
“Emory’s business students are well rounded. They have a can-do attitude and broad interests. I love that.”
For those looking to forge their own unconventional paths, Balch offers simple but hard-earned advice:
When you’re thinking about career choices, think about what you love doing. People get tired of this advice, but it’s true: I’ve never done anything because I thought it would make me rich, but because it seemed fun. Hard work helps, but enjoyment helps a lot more.
Tucker Balch
And if the odds seem daunting?
“Don’t be deterred by some statistic, like ‘only 10 percent of people get this job.’ To quote my dad, ‘There’s always room at the top.’ Take risks, especially with things you enjoy.”
Whether in the cockpit or the classroom, Balch’s career proves that exploration isn’t just about where you start—it’s about staying open to every new horizon along the way.
Goizueta faculty are driving innovation, tackling today’s most complex business challenges. Through groundbreaking research and dynamic teaching, they go beyond conventional approaches—because that’s how lasting change happens. Learn more here.
