Olga Balakina presenting "The Value of Connections: Network Effects on Stock Market Participation"

Olga Balakina is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Economics at Lund University and Knut Wicksell Centre for Financial Studies. Her research is at the intersection of applied networks, household finance and behavioral finance.

Xing Huang presenting "More Cash Flows, More Options? The Effect of Cash Windfalls on Small Firms"

 Xing Huang is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis. She received a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 2013, and a B.A. and a M.A. in Finance from Peking University. Prior to joining WashU, Dr. Huang served on the faculty of the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. She has also worked as research associate at Morgan Stanley Capital International and summer research fellow at Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Dr. Huang's research focuses on behavioral finance, asset pricing, and household finance. She is interested in empirically characterizing how market participants behave, and identifying how these (non-standard) behaviors can improve our understanding on the pricing of the financial market. Her work has been published in the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Review of Finance, and Management Science.

Christine Laudenbach presenting "Do Seemingly Smarter People Get Better Advice?"

Christine Laudenbach is a post doc at the Finance Department at Goethe University in Frankfurt. Her reasearch interests are in behavioral finance. She is particularly interested in the drivers of financial decision making of private households and in ways of improving the quality of these decision e.g., through financial education, financial advice, or decision making tools. To address these questions, she employs empirical as well as experimental methods.

Tatjana Marchuk presenting "Direct Lending in the U.S. Middle Market"

Tatyana is an Assistant Professor in Finance at BI Norwegian Business School.  Her research focuses on Empirical Asset Pricing in connection to Financial Intermediation and Macroeconomics. She was a Visiting Doctoral Fellow at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, in Fall 2014 and 2016.

Elisa Pazaj presenting "The Value-Momentum Correlation: An Investment Explanation"

 Elisa Pazaj is a PhD Candidate in Finance at Caas Business School, City, University of London. Her main research field is asset pricing. She looks at the effects of capital market imperfections on firm valuation and explores their role in explaining stock return anomalies.

Yushi Peng presenting "Mortgage Credit and Housing Markets"

 Yushi Peng is a Ph.D. candidate in finance at the University of Zurich and the Swiss Finance Institute. Her research interests lie in financial intermediation, real estate finance, corporate finance, and empirical industrial organization. She earned her B.A. in Economics from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and her M.Sc. in Economics from the University of Bonn.

Isabella Wolfskeil presenting "Tweeting in the Dark: Corporate Tweeting and Information Diffusion"

 Isabella Wolfskeil is a Finance PhD candidate at Bocconi University. Her research interests lie in the area of corporate finance, with a focus on the interactions among social media, belief formation, and asset prices. She is originally from the US. After graduating in Finance at The University of Florida, she decided to move to Europe for her graduate studies and become part of Bocconi's interdisciplinary academic environment. 

Senay Agca, Associate Professor of Finance, George Washington University and Economics 

 Senay Agca is an Associate Professor of Finance at the George Washington University and Economics Program Director at the National Science Foundation (NSF). She received her PhD from Virginia Tech. Her research interests are macro-finance, corporate finance, credit risk and product markets. She has published her research in leading journals in the field and has won various awards and grants for her research such as the J. Wendell and Louise Crain Research Fellowship, GW-CIBER research grants, American Consortium on European Union Studies grant, and GW-Institute for Corporate Responsibility grant. As Economics Program Director at the NSF, her responsibilities include administration of the merit review process, making funding recommendations, and participating in the development of new NSF initiatives. She further contributes more broadly to NSF’s mission by working on interdisciplinary programs such as the Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry, Harnessing the Data Revolution, and 2026 NSF Idea Machine.  She has also worked as a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund and Sciences Po, Paris at various time periods.

Marieke Bos, Deputy Director at the Swedish House of Finance at the Stockholm School of Economics

 Marieke Bos is a researcher in Financial Economics and Deputy Director at the Swedish House of Finance at the Stockholm School of Economics. She also holds a visiting scholar position at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Consumer Finance Institute. Marieke has been a board member of the Swedish Pensions Agency and a visiting scholar at the Central Bank of Sweden Marieke has won the 2019 Michael J. Brennan Best Paper Award for her paper with Emily Breza and Andres Liberman, ”The Labor Market Effects of Credit Market Information” in the Review of Financial Studies,  and the 2017 Hans Dalborg award for excellence in Financial Economic Research. She also obtained research grants from FORTE, the Swedish Innovation agency (VINNOVA), NBER, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Russel Sage Foundation, the Swedish Bank Research Foundation and the Filene Research Institute. Marieke’s research focuses mainly on individuals decision making within the field of Household Finance and Empirical Banking.

Corinne Lamesch, Chairperson of the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry (ALFI) and Luxembourg Country Head at Fidelity International 

 Corinne Lamesch is the Chair of the ALFI Board of Directors since June 2019. She is a regular speaker at industry events and has been actively participating in conferences and roadshows that ALFI is organising in Luxembourg and across the globe.  
Corinne is Country Head, Luxembourg at Fidelity International and has over 20 years of experience in the Luxembourg fund industry. She joined Fidelity International in 2008 and has also acted as Conducting Officer of Fidelity International’s Luxembourg-based management company since 2015. Prior to joining Fidelity International, Corinne worked as a lawyer for Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy from 1998 to 2008, advising on the Luxembourg and international investment fund industry. Corinne holds two Masters in Law from Université Robert Schuman, Strasbourg and New York University School of Law. She was admitted as a lawyer to the Luxembourg Bar (1999-2008) and to the New York Bar (since 1998).

Bernadette Minton, Professor of Finance at the Ohio State University Fisher College of Business 

 Professor Minton was appointed Chair of the Department of Finance at The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business in 2016.  She also holds the Arthur E. Shepard Endowed Professorship in Insurance. Prior to her appointment as chair, Professor Minton was selected to serve as the inaugural Academic Director of The Risk Institute since its inception in October 2013, as well as its Interim Executive Director. During her tenure, she oversaw growth in The Risk Institute’s profile and its corporate participation. She worked closely with the Institute’s advisory board in coordinating and leading The Risk Institute’s outreach, research and curriculum activities.

Professor Minton’s research spans a variety of areas within corporate finance, with particular emphasis on risk management, corporate governance and financial institutions.  Her research has been published and highly cited in leading financial economics journals such as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics and Review of Financial Studies, as well as the financial press.  As a leader in her area of scholarship, Dr. Minton has been recognized for both her research output and her impact in the classroom teaching.  She is a recipient of the Pace Setters Faculty Research Award and Pace Setters Undergraduate teaching Award andis and Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics Research Fellow. During her time at Ohio State Professor Minton has developed a number of successful courses in the Undergraduate program.  She currently teaches risk management to Fisher undergraduate students and works with future finance thought leaders in the Department of Finance’s PhD program.

Anna Pavlova, Professor of Finance at London Business School

 Anna Pavlova is Professor of Finance and Academic Director of the AQR Asset Management Institute at London Business School. She is also Director of the American Finance Association, Officer of the European Economic Association and former Director of the European Finance Association. She is a Research Fellow of the Centre for Economic Policy Research and an Associate Editor of the Review of Financial Studies. Prior to joining LBS, she was a faculty member at MIT Sloan School of Management. She holds a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania. Professor Pavlova has been published in top journals such as the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, the Review of Financial Studies and the Review of Economic Studies. Her recent research focuses on the impact of asset managers on asset prices and corporate decisions, financialization of  commodities and frictions in international financial markets. Anna has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant and has received several other prestigious awards for her research and teaching.

Loriana Pelizzon, SAFE Full Professor at Goethe University Frankfurt

 Loriana is the Program Director of the Research Centre SAFE Systemic Risk Lab, SAFE Full Professor at Goethe University Frankfurt, Chair of Law and Finance and Coordinator of Gender Equality at the Research Center SAFE. She is also part-time Full Professor of Economics at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and Research Affiliate at MIT Sloan. She graduated from the London Business School with a doctorate in Finance. Her research interests are on risk measurement and management, asset allocation and household portfolios, hedge funds, financial institutions, systemic risk, sovereign risk and financial crisis. She was one of the coordinators of the European Finance Association (EFA) Doctoral Tutorial, member of the EFA Executive Committee and member of the BSI GAMMA Foundation Board. She has been involved in NBER and FDIC projects as well as EU, Europlace and Inquire Europe, EIEF, Bank of France projects and VolkswagenStiftung: Europe and Global Challenges. She was a member of the EIOPA’s Insurance and Reinsurance Stakeholder Group and is currently member of the Advisory Scientific Committee of the European Systemic Risk Board, member of the EU independent expert advice team in the field of Banking Union and external Expert for the EU commission on digital currency and blockchain technology. She frequently advises banks, pension funds and government agencies on risk measurement and management strategies.

Melissa Prado, Associated Professor in Finance at Nova School of Business and Economics

 Melissa Prado is an Associated Professor in Finance at Nova School of Business and Economics. She has a Ph.D. in Finance from RSM Erasmus University. A primary theme of her research is to understand how market frictions affect institutional investor trading behavior and asset prices. She published in leading academic journals such as the Journal of Finance, Review of Financial Studies, and Journal of Financial Economics, among others. Her research has been presented at many international conferences, including the AFA and EFA meetings.

Manju Puri, J. B. Fuqua Professor, Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and incoming Chair of AFFECT 

 Manju Puri is the J. B. Fuqua Professor of Finance at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. She was earlier Associate Professor of Finance at Stanford Business School, which she joined after earning her Ph.D in finance at New York University and MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Professor Puri is an authority in the field of empirical corporate finance and has particular expertise in financial intermediation.  Her published work spans the areas of commercial banks, investment banks, venture capital, entrepreneurship, behavioral finance, and FinTech. Her research has appeared in publications such as American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and Review of Financial Studies. She has been the recipient of the Sloan Research Fellowship as well as multiple awards from the National Science Foundation. Her publication record includes over 30 refereed papers in the top finance and economic journals.  Her research has won many awards including four best paper awards at the FMA Annual Meetings, two Western Finance Association best paper awards, an All-Star award from Journal of Financial Economics, and three Fama-DFA /Jenson best paper awards in the Journal of Financial Economics. 
 
Professor Puri serves as Editor of Review of Financial Studies.  She earlier served as Editor of the Journal of Financial Intermediation, as well as on the editorial boards of several journals including Journal of Finance, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of Empirical Finance, Journal of Financial Research, and Journal of Financial Services Research. Professor Puri has served as the President of the Financial Intermediation Research Society. She has worked with multiple regulatory authorities serving on the Financial Advisory Roundtable, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and on the Model Validation Council, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.  She has also served on the Bose Committee on the commission structure of financial product distributors for the Government of India, and on the Advisory Board of CAFRAL, Reserve Bank of India. She currently serves on the International Association of Deposit Insurers (IADI) Advisory Panel, Basel, and as Senior Advisor, Center for Financial Research, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC).  She is a senior academic fellow at the Asia Bureau of Finance and Economic Research. and a Research Associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). 
 
Professor Puri teaches an elective she created on “Raising Capital and Financial Technologies” for the MBA students at Fuqua. She has also taught a Ph.D class on Empirical Corporate Finance and has taught Advanced Corporate Finance, and Venture Capital Financing at Fuqua and Stanford Business School. She has mentored a number of Ph.D students who have been placed at the leading schools and institutions including Board of Governors, Columbia, Cornell, McKinsey, MIT, Purdue, and Yale University.

Kathy Yuan, Professor of Finance at London School of Economics

 Professor Yuan received her Ph.D. in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to obtaining her Ph.D., she worked briefly in the Emerging Markets Trading Desk at J. P. Morgan (now JPMorgan-Chase). Her academic research focuses on developing macro-finance and asset pricing theories with liquidity implications in environments with information and market frictions and testing their empirical implications. In the past few years, she has examined how crises spread through international financial markets and how introducing benchmark securities such as treasury bonds or stock indices improves the overall market liquidity. She is currently working on modelling systematic risk using network theory, studying higher order beliefs and belief coordination in static and dynamic financial markets, building dynamic and multi-asset REE models of asset prices with short-sale and borrowing constraints, constructing new metrics for performance evaluations, and developing applied theories of money and public liquidity. She is a member of FMG, CEPR and has also received Houblon-Norman Fellowship at the Bank of England. She has also conducted policy research for central banks and financial market regulators.