Message From the Bachelor of Finance Program Director
Hello from the Finance and Managerial Economics Area at the UT Dallas Naveen Jindal School of Management! I am stepping in to send greetings on behalf of Dr. Harold Zhang, our area coordinator, who is currently teaching abroad. Dr. Zhang will be back in the fall. In the meantime, I wanted to share some updates for the undergraduate finance program.
The Bachelor of Science in Finance program has continued to grow, both in enrollment as well as in the number of students doing internships. The program enrollment has grown to more than 900 students, making finance the largest undergraduate major in JSOM as of fall 2018.
In addition, we have seen a 50% increase in finance internships over the last academic year, thanks to the comparatively new requirement that all JSOM undergraduate students must complete an internship in order to graduate. Key employers include JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Texas Instruments and Fidelity Investments, just to name a few. Accordingly, the program continues to expand its course offerings in efforts to remain relevant to employers’ needs.
Dr. S. Drew Peabody
Clinical Assistant Professor, Finance and Managerial Economics
Director, Bachelor of Science in Finance Program
Naveen Jindal School of Management
Recent Happenings
Finance Society Meeting
The Finance Society Meeting is the major event in the Finance and Managerial Economics Area each semester. The gathering provides an opportunity for finance students, Finance Advisory Board members and alumni to connect and network. A full house of participants attended the spring 2019 meeting on April 2 in the JSOM Executive Dining Room. Dan Meader, managing partner of Trinity Private Equity Group and former chairman of the CFA Institute, delivered the keynote address. He talked about trends in real estate involving direct private-equity investing and shared his approach to evaluating financial deals.
Following Meader’s presentation, Dr. Carolyn Reichert, director of the MS in Finance program, and Dr. S. Drew Peabody, director of the BS in Finance program, presented awards for leadership and academic achievements to several outstanding graduating finance students. Sebastian Cadario, MS in Finance student, and Tina Nilolaeva Dimitrov, BS in Finance student, each received an Outstanding Finance Student Trophy. Clayton Knight, Wan Yee Lau and Siyu Ai were awarded graduate-level Academic Excellence Certificates. Liane Pavon Lodeiro and Edgar Martinez received undergraduate-level Academic Excellence Certificates.
After the meeting, Salman Jasim, a member of both the Dean’s Council and the Graduate Finance Management Council, said, “The finance program meeting was a wonderful event that brought together peers and patrons of the UTD finance programs to celebrate the achievements of the graduating batch of finance students. The event keynote speaker, Mr. Dan Meader, was charismatic and engaging and inspired audience members to be inquisitive, pragmatic and calculative in all aspects of their lives, especially regarding their finances.”
Risk Management and Insurance Spring Break Study Abroad Trip
Munich RE visit – Front row (from left): JSOM lecturer Larry Kaplan, students Noelle Rivera, Kavya Ganesh, Ramon Ramos and Shriya Bahri; Marilyn Kaplan, Debra Richardson, and students Vathsalya Senapathi, Katherine Prine and Karema Sallam. Back row (from left): Randy Richardson, Debra Richardson’s husband and an insurance underwriter, and students Sean Kirwan, Henry Forson, Akwasi Achiaw, Edwin Kumar, Gabriel Envani and Emmanuel Sifuentes
Debra Richardson, director of the Risk Management and Insurance Concentration, and Dr. Marilyn Kaplan, associate dean of undergraduate programs and director of study abroad programs in the Jindal School, led a group of undergraduate students on a Jindal Global Experience trip to Switzerland and Germany over spring break.
Student participants represented various disciplines at UT Dallas, including accounting, actuarial science, finance, human resource management, information technology and systems, marketing, and risk management and insurance. The students visited several insurance and risk management firms. Each was a major world leader and highly ranked in the Fortune 500 group of companies.
The study group had access to C-suite executives at each company, and the respective management teams were gracious and encouraging to the students. Not only did the students learn how risk fit into each company’s particular business discipline, they also explored two major global cities and experienced their cultures and cuisines. The study group visited two castles in Germany and spent time in Lucerne, Switzerland.
“This was truly an outstanding experience for our students and faculty advisors,” Richardson said.
Weitzmans’ $3 Million Gift Helping JSOM to Expand Real Estate Program
Jindal School Dean Hasan Pirkul announced at the Naveen Jindal School of Management Scholarship Breakfast Nov. 6 that real estate legend Herb Weitzman and his wife, Donna, had given a $3 million gift to the school to create the Herbert D. Weitzman Institute for Real Estate. The gift will provide scholarships to undergraduate finance and business administration students pursuing a career in real estate. Click here to learn more.
Alumni Corner
Jacob Mangalath is a manager in the valuation group of Generational Equity. Mangalath leads a team of associates who perform exit-planning services, including mergers and acquisitions advisory, business valuation, creating pitch books and providing sell-side business strategies for middle-market business owners. Mangalath graduated cum laude in 2012, earning Bachelor of Science degrees in accounting and finance from the Jindal School. Two years later, he earned a Master of Science in Finance and an MBA degree. He was a member of the inaugural Professional MBA Evening Cohort program.
Mangalath credits much of his professional success to the Jindal School’s flexible scheduling, which allowed him to pursue his academic and career goals in tandem. He says his active membership in groups such as the Financial Leadership Association and various other networking opportunities played a vital role in helping him keep abreast of industry trends and gain exposure to key players in the job market.
Faculty Focus
Two Finance Professors Win Top Crowell Prizes
Two Naveen Jindal School of Management finance and managerial economics faculty members have earned recognition for their research as top finishers in the 2018 Crowell Prize competition. Dr. Umit Gurun, also a professor in the accounting program, and his co-authors received first place for their paper, “IQ from IP: Simplifying Search in Portfolio Choice”. Dr. Jun Li, an associate professor, and his co-researcher, earned the third-place prize for their paper, “The Expected Investment Growth Premium.” Click here to learn more.
New Tenure-Track Faculty
Dr. Xiaoxiao Tang, assistant professor of finance and managerial economics
Previously: PhD candidate, Washington University in St. Louis
Research interests: Theoretical and empirical asset pricing, options, recovery, disaster risk
Quote: “My research focuses on using options to obtain forward-looking moments of stock returns. I am also interested in newly developed statistical models and their applications to different areas in finance.”
Upcoming Events
For MS in Finance chat session and online Information Session schedules, click here.
