Tristan
Maqellara.
Political Science student who plans to go to law school for mergers and acquisitions. Co-founder of Purdue's first hedge fund society. I taught myself to build the rest.
"Give me something new and I'll figure it out."
I'm the first in my family to go to college. I didn't come in with a network or a playbook, just a willingness to pick things up fast and get to work. A student hedge fund, a quant trading system, finance case competitions: none of it was something I knew how to do before I started. After Purdue, I plan to go to law school and work toward a career in mergers and acquisitions (when one company buys or combines with another).
Where I've Worked
West Lafayette, IN
- Started Purdue's first hedge fund club from the ground up and wrote the full semester curriculum
- Teach members long/short investing (betting some stocks rise while others fall) and DCF valuation (pricing a company from the cash it will make)
- Line up guest speakers from asset managers and hedge funds so members hear from people doing the work
- Built the club site, boilerhedge.com, with AI tools and run recruiting through LinkedIn, a short video, and an interest form
West Lafayette, IN
- Go to workshops and speaker events on internships and careers, and meet with alumni mentors
West Lafayette, IN
- Take part in workshops, leadership training, and networking nights
Marlboro, NJ
- Looked after a group of campers all summer and kept them safe, busy, and on time
Tinton Falls, NJ
- Cleared and reset tables on busy nights and kept the dining room running
- Showed up for every shift and worked as part of the floor team for over a year
What I've Built
Regime Trader
A trading system built from scratch that uses a 7-state Hidden Markov Model (a model that guesses the hidden "mood" of the market from price patterns) to sort conditions into bull, bear, crash, and volatile. It gives buy or stay out signals and comes with backtesting, risk rules, and a live dashboard.
boilerhedge.com
The website for BoilerHedge. I built it over a summer with AI coding tools and no coding background, and it now runs our recruiting. Visit the site
Personal AI Assistant
A custom assistant built on Claude's API and MCP (a standard way to plug AI into other apps). It runs tasks on its own, handles outreach workflows, and connects to outside tools. Built for real daily use.
Ledger
An AI study assistant made specifically for MGMT 187, with the course content and structure built in so it actually helps instead of giving generic answers.
Brees Athletic Club
Broke down how the club makes money and projected revenue growing from $65.5 million in 2024 to over $100 million by 2028. Found that higher pay did not mean happier staff, and recommended performance based pay, promotions at the slowest branches, and a loan to open a new location.
Honors
Wells Fargo Wealth Management Case Competition
Built investment strategies for a client covering risk tolerance, cash needs, and long term goals, then pitched the full plan to Wells Fargo executives.
CSBS Community Bank Case Study Competition
One of 15 teams picked out of 35 for the second round. Went through five years of Centier Bank numbers on earnings, loans, capital, and liquidity, interviewed bank executives, and turned it into a report and a video.
Background
Let's Connect
Internships, research, or anything in law, finance, and deals. I'm open to all of it.