FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: George M. Tomczyk, (716) 275-8189
SIMON SCHOOL ANNOUNCES TEN NEW FACULTY MEMBERS
Appointments Enhance School's Already Formidable Teaching and Research Capabilities
Rochester, N.Y.--September 1, 1999--The William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration has announced 10 new appointments to its internationally renowned faculty. Joining the Simon School are Elizabeth A. Demers, Arthur G. Kraft, Charles E. Wasley and Shuang (Joanna) Wu (Accounting); Paul B. Ellickson (Economics and Management); Rui Albuquerque, Christopher S. Jones and Erwan Morellec (Finance); Sanjog R. Misra (Marketing), and Nils Rudi (Operations Management).
"The recruitment, retention and development of a superior-quality faculty has always been one of the Simon School's highest priorities," Dean Charles I. Plosser said. "We compete vigorously with other top business schools around the world for exceptional faculty. Our success in attracting this number of outstanding scholars and researchers within one academic year is extremely significant. It testifies to our excellent reputation, and makes it possible for us to strengthen the depth and breadth of our academic offerings and research capabilities." In addition, Plosser stated that a larger faculty will also "help stimulate the intellectual environment, which places Simon students on the frontiers of knowledge."
Long recognized as a leader in finance education, the Simon School has in recent years applied its unique economics-based approach and integrated curriculum to new, innovative concentrations in Competitive and Organizational Strategy, Health Care Management and, most recently, Electronic Commerce. In 1998, the School announced a joint M.D./M.B.A. degree program and an M.B.A. track in Brand Management.
The 10 new Simon faculty members bring a wide range of interests to the School:
Rui Albuquerque, assistant professor of finance, has current research interests that focus on optimal financial strategies and industry dynamics. He is interested in analyzing how the lack of commitment produces contractual arrangements that lead to financial constraints, and in understanding the implications of capital market imperfections to the behavior of the aggregate economy. Albuquerque has also worked on optimal currency hedging policies of firms concerned with downside risks, and on the properties of industry dynamics resulting from trade reforms. He won the Kaplan Award for the best graduate student of the Department of Economics, University of Rochester. Before pursuing his Ph.D., Albuquerque was a lecturer for the Portuguese Catholic University in Lisbon, and a research assistant at the Research Center of the Bank of Portugal. He holds a B.A. (magna cum laude) in Economics from Portuguese Catholic University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Rochester.
Elizabeth A. Demers, assistant professor of accounting, is currently researching corporate equity valuations and risk management activities in the property-casualty insurance industry. She is also interested in incentive issues and executive compensation. Prior to her current Ph.D. candidacy in Business Administration at Stanford University, Demers practiced as a Chartered Accountant specializing in business valuations and litigation accounting in Toronto. She holds a B.A. (with honors) and an M.Acc in Accounting from the University of Waterloo, and an M.S. in Statistics from Stanford University.
Paul B. Ellickson is assistant professor of economics and management. He is exploring the impact of quality-enhancing endogenous sunk costs on competition and market structure in the supermarket industry. Additional work presently underway is concerned with identifying complements between organizational and technological investments and assessing their impact on both performance and entry decisions. Ellickson is broadly interested in the economics of organizations. He earned his B.A. in Economics and Mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley, and is a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Christopher S. Jones, assistant professor of finance joined the Simon School after receiving his Ph.D. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to his graduate studies at Wharton, Jones worked for several years in a research section at the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. His research and teaching interests are in the area of empirical asset pricing, and his dissertation concerned the creation and application of new statistical methods for analyzing problems in fixed income and derivatives pricing. Jones's current research examines the factors underlying stock market volatility and their impact on derivatives prices. He holds a B.S. (with honors) in Mathematical Economics from Pomona College.
Arthur G. Kraft, assistant professor of accounting, is broadly interested in the effects of financial disclosures on capital market participants and security prices, the credibility of voluntary disclosure mechanisms and corporate governance. His current research explores the predictability of future returns based on currently available information. A C.P.A. in the State of Illinois, he is an M.B.A. and Ph.D. candidate in Business Administration at the University of Chicago. Before pursuing these degrees, he worked in the Derivatives and Structured Finance Department at Arthur Andersen (New York). In this capacity he worked with Fortune 500 firms. Kraft earned B.B.A. and M.Acc degrees in Accounting from the University of Michigan.
Sanjog R. Misra, who is an assistant professor of marketing at the Simon School, is currently conducting a theoretical and empirical investigation of sales force compensation design. In particular, he looks at the impact of various marketing variables and decisions on the compensation scheme. His broader interests are in the application of agency and contract theory to marketing and channel decisions. In addition, Misra is interested in the econometric analysis of discrete and qualitative data, from both frequents and bayesian perspectives. Prior to arriving in the U.S. to pursue his Ph.D. in Marketing, which he earned from the State University of New York at Buffalo, Misra worked as an associate consultant for a Microsoft solution provider. He is currently working on various research projects with Fortune 500 companies such as Xerox Corporation and Lucent Technologies with the aim of helping them design more efficient sales compensation plans. He also holds a B.A. in Economics from Ravenshaw College in India, an M.B.A. in Marketing from FSM in New Delhi, India, and an M.S. in Statistics from the State University of New York at Buffalo.
Erwan Morellec, assistant professor of finance, has teaching and research interests in corporate finance. His current research includes the valuation of corporate securities, capital structure choices and capital budgeting under uncertainty. Before joining the Simon faculty he taught finance in France and in Lebanon. He has also served as a consultant to Paribas Corporate Finance for the implementation of real options models and the valuation of international projects. Morellec holds a B.A. in Business Administration from CERAM, an M.A. in Finance from Sorbonne University and a Ph.D. in Finance from HEC School of Management, all in France.
Nils Rudi is an assistant professor of operations management at the Simon School, with research interests in operations management with overlap to information systems and marketing. Recently, he has been focusing on supply chain management and how one can use different methods (e.g. variety postponement, real options and incentive structures) to reduce the demand uncertainty. After high school, Rudi worked for three years as a computer programmer at Enterprise Resource Planning Systems. He then formed Minard, specializing in decision support systems for forecasting and inventory. Minard went public on the Oslo Stock Exchange (Norway) in 1996. Before becoming a Ph.D. candidate in Operations Management at the University of Pennsylvania, he studied part-time for a B.S. degree in Computer Science at Molde College.
Charles E. Wasley will be visiting the Simon School as a research associate professor of accounting for two academic years. His teaching interests are in the corporate financial reporting and analysis area. His research interests are the role of accounting information in capital markets, management earnings forecasts, voluntary disclosure and security market microstructure, accounting disclosures and stock return behavior, executive compensation and incentives, and corporate governance. Current research is focusing on properties of the earnings announcements of high-technology companies, the behavior of bid-ask spreads around management earnings forecast announcements and corporate conference calls, and the relation between firm valuation and corporate governance practices in the Netherlands. Wasley's recent publications include "Estimating Response Coefficients: Pooled Versus Firm Specific Models" (with Walter Teets) which is published in the Journal of Accounting and Economics and "Stock-Based Incentive Contracts and Managerial Performance" (with Cynthia Campbell) which is published in the Journal of Financial Economics. His other work has been published in The Accounting Review; Journal of Accounting Research, The Journal of Finance; Journal of Financial Economics; Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance; Journal of Portfolio Management, and Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting. Prior to his appointment at the Simon School, Wasley was a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Iowa (on leave). He is the recipient of an Ernst and Young Doctoral Fellowship. Wasley holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Accounting from the State University of New York at Binghamton, and a Ph.D. in Accounting from the University of Iowa.
Shuang (Joanna) Wu, assistant professor of accounting, is conducting research on the stock market and the behavior of its participants, analysts forecasts, capital markets and earnings analysis. Her teaching interests are in financial and managerial accounting and she taught for two years at Tulane University while completing her thesis. Her dissertation is entitled "Financial Analysts Understanding of the Seasonal Patterns in Quarterly Earnings and Its Implications for Market Efficiency." Wu was a 1997 Consortium Fellow for the American Accounting Association Doctoral Consortium and has been a Certified Public Accountant since 1997. She holds a B.A. in International Economics from Beijing University, and an M.A. in Economics and a Ph.D. in Accounting, both from Tulane University.
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The Simon School is ranked among the top 25 U.S. graduate schools of business by U.S. News & World Report in its March 1999 survey, and 21st among the top 50 business schools in North America and Europe by the Financial Times of London in its January 1999 survey.
In the latest Business Week survey, published in October 1998, Simon Class of '98 graduates ranked the Simon School 2nd in the nation in cross-functional learning, integration of materials among courses and ethnic diversity; 3rd in leading-edge knowledge of faculty; 6th in use of current research/material in teaching and overall teaching quality; 7th in elective teaching quality, and 10th in approaches to problem solving and their M.B.A. experience being worth their investment in time and money.
With one of the most highly regarded faculties in the country, the Simon School is one of the nation's premier research institutions. The School, recognized for its leading scholarship in management, employs a distinctive approach to business education through its flexibility, innovation, youth, size, global outlook and vision.
Information about the Simon School is also available on the World Wide Web at http://www.simon.rochester.edu
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