Message from the Area Coordinator
I would like to begin by congratulating all our May 2021 graduates from the Finance and Managerial Economics Area for successful completion of their degree programs. They overcame a challenging situation during the pandemic and accomplished an important milestone. We are finally turning a corner in fighting the pandemic; as more people are getting vaccinated, COVID-19 is now under control. We are all excited and looking forward to the resumption of back-to-normal life and in-person teaching starting this fall. After the difficult year of 2020, we see an increase in applicants to our programs, and more students will join us in the summer and fall semesters. We look forward to meeting our new students and engaging in person in the classroom. For our newly graduated alumni, we would very much like you to keep in touch with us and share with us your successes and joys in life. We wish you the very best in your professional endeavors.
Dr. Harold Zhang
Professor, Finance and Managerial Economics
Area Coordinator, Finance and Managerial Economics
Naveen Jindal School of Management
Recent Happenings
Financial Analytics With Tableau Competition
This spring, the Jindal School’s Finance Lab hosted the first Financial Analytics With Tableau Competition. In total, 101 teams with 204 students registered. The competition consisted of three phases lasting 2½ months.
The top three teams, their topics and their members were:
- Team 1 with Topic 1, the impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. retail industry and U.S. financial industry: Medhini Prakash, MS in Information Technology and Management, and Tejas Kulkarni, MS in ITM
- Team 2 with Topic 2, the effects of COVID-19 on the U.S. economy and U.S. financial markets: Tejaswini Seelam, MS in ITM, and Vaishnavi Tirumani, MS in ITM
- Team 3 with Topic 3, credit card fraud analysis: Dinesh Rana, MS in Energy Management, and Priya Rupramka, MS in Finance.
The competition consisted of three phases lasting 2½ months, from Jan. 25 to March 4.
During the first phase, which ended in mid-February, each registered team received datasets and Tableau education tutorials. Teams also were required to pick one of the three topics.
The second competition phase gave teams two weeks to analyze the datasets and submit the data view on Tableau. During the third phase, the winter storm Uri severely impacted many students’ lives and study; however, 30 teams successfully completed the analysis and submitted their data view.
Serving as judges, finance faculty members Dr. Jeffrey Ayres and Dr. Liping Ma evaluated the reports and provided comments and feedback to the participating teams.
“The competition facilitated both the financial education and analytics skills of our students,” Ma said. “We received applications from students with diverse backgrounds across all business majors. A few students studied engineering and computer science. Even though the pandemic and the winter storm disrupted our lives, many students took the challenge and created great data stories. It showed our students’ resilience, curiosity, creativity and commitment in this competition journey.”
A March 4 virtual showcase, hosted via Microsoft Teams, celebrated the students’ achievements and recognized the top three teams. Two guest speakers, Shane Mahmood, president at Allegiance Capital Corporation, and Danny Thompson, regional vice president, consumer goods at Tableau Software, joined Ayres and Ma and shared their experiences and insights from the financial industry.
“Data is more prevalent and valuable today than ever before, but being able to understand, visualize, analyze and communicate actionable solutions is a real talent,” Ayres said. By taking on new challenges, such as the Tableau competition, competitors showed they were willing to test themselves and “develop these important skills.”
Winners also shared their experiences and suggestions. Team 2 winner Tejaswini Seelam said the competition “provided me a great opportunity to improve upon my Tableau skills while solving a business problem, understanding the effects of COVID-19 on the U.S. economy and financial markets. My partner and I built several dashboards and a storyboard to convey the analysis of the impact of COVID-19.”
With further research into Tableau, Seelam added, “I was able to create candlestick charts to show the effect of COVID on certain stocks. Although it took a while to learn, the final product was very rewarding and taught me a lot in regard to Tableau functionality.”
Seelam, who comes from a non-finance background, said she “got a chance to learn financial concepts and terminology while analyzing the data. I highly recommend my peers to partake in this opportunity in the future to get a real-life experience with working on financial data and analyzing data to provide great insights.”
Team 3 winner Dinesh Rana commented that “in today’s data-driven tech era, Tableau is one of the sought-after skills that are relevant to every industry. I am fortunate that I picked up this skill by participating in the Tableau competition.”
Rana and his teammate, Priya Rupramka, picked the dataset for credit card fraud transactions. “We analyzed the different variables that differentiate the fraudulent and non-fraudulent transactions and visualized the same on Tableau dashboards,” Rana said. “For me personally, it was a great learning experience. This competition has helped me refine my data analytics skills. I am very thankful to Dr. Liping Ma as well as the whole team of the Finance Lab, who took the initiative of bringing Tableau to our reach. I would highly recommend everyone learn Tableau and to add more data crunching and data visualization skills in your professional portfolio.”
Senior Earns Internship Along With International Real Estate Scholarship
Arden Pray, a recent BS in Business Administration graduate with real estate career aspirations, was recognized by the Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) Network Foundation as one of 25 international collegiate female scholarship recipients. The recognition entitled Pray to a $5,000 scholarship, an internship and other benefits. This spring, as president of the Jindal School based UT Dallas Real Estate Club, Pray helped design the Born to Build Leadership Roundtable, a series of virtual events co-presented by the club and the Herbert D. Weitzman Institute for Real Estate.
Read more on Inside Jindal School.
Student Spotlight
Graduate Finance Management Council Partners With Alumni on New Mentoring Program
To help MS in Finance students acquire skills and determine career paths, the Graduate Finance Management Council (GFMC) partnered with a group of MS in Finance alumni to roll out a new GFMC Mentorship program in spring 2021. With alumni support, the program aims to guide graduate finance students holistically and help them choose the right path to success.
In March, GFMC conducted separate information sessions, one for mentors and one for mentees, to explain the program structure, policies and expectations. During the mentor session, one mentor said: “Very recently, we were in the same spot as the mentees whom we are mentoring. … I really appreciate the initiatives taken by GFMC to connect their current students with us. My career goals may not match with my mentee, but I can surely tell them how and what I learned from my mistakes and help them make a choice.”
After the sessions, GFMC matched 11 mentors with 22 mentees based on their backgrounds, career aspirations and interests.
Feedback from the students has included such comments as:
“My mentor helped me create a schedule and a list of things I need to do, and we periodically meet and discuss the progress. This is really helping me utilize my time in the best possible manner while helping me acquire all the necessary skills and preparing me for my target role.”
“My mentor has tried to help me to the best of her knowledge and experience. She has always made herself available to any queries and concerns I had. Some of her experiences and advice, especially with regard to my internship and job search, have been really invaluable.”
“My mentor has gone through my résumé multiple times and has suggested some very good changes. He has also suggested many possible profiles I can look into while applying and hunting for internship and job opportunities. I am truly thankful to my mentor and GFMC for providing this opportunity.”
Recently, GFMC held an election and formed a new team of officers for fall 2021. With all the encouraging feedback, the new team is determined to steer the program to success. They are calling on all MS in Finance alumni to join this mentor program and share their tips and success with finance students.
Alumni Corner
Zhiyao Zhao graduated from the Master of Science in Finance program in May and has accepted a full-time job with Citigroup, based in Irving, Texas. Zhiyao earned a bachelor’s degree in finance with distinction from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln in 2019.
During his studies at UT Dallas, he interned as an investment analyst at Allegiance Capital Corporation, was employed as a teaching assistant in the Finance Lab, passed the Chartered Financial Analyst Level I exam and was awarded the Dean’s Excellence Scholarship for his contribution to the community and his outstanding academic performances.
Zhiyao attributes his internship opportunity, certification and career success to his MS in Finance program studies and support from the faculty members and staff at UT Dallas.
“The MS in Finance program in JSOM is one of the most valuable MSF programs — with sophisticated and ingenious curriculum design, flexible career directions and affordable tuition. With a various range of workshops and events, students can obtain many opportunities to network with finance professionals and prepare their future careers based on the suggestions and recommendations from those professionals. The thoughts I would like to share with the students are: Find your real passion, keep putting in the effort and never quit easily,” Zhiyao said.
Faculty Research Corner
Haynes, Steven, David Hunstman, Alex Greer and Haley Murphy, “Enhancing Adaptive Performance in Emergency Response: Empowerment Practices and the Moderating Role of Tempo Balance,” Safety Science, Volume 134, February 2021, Article 105060.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0925753520304574#!.
Hyndman, Kyle, Matthew Embrey and Arno Riedl, “Bargaining with a Residual Claimant: An Experimental Study,” Games and Economic Behavior, Vol. 126, March 2021: 335-354.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geb.2020.12.005.
Lewin, Peter, “How Should an Austrian Economist Teach the Theory of the Firm? Do the Equi-Marginal Conditions Still Apply?” The Review of Austrian Economics. Published online: Feb. 15, 2021.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11138-020-00540-7.
Li, Jun, Huijun Wang and Jianfeng Yu, “The Expected Investment Growth Premium,” Financial Management. Published online: Jan. 20, 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1111/fima.12340.
Nanda, Vikram, Steven Chong Xiao and Jinglin Jian, “Stock-Market Disruptions and Corporate Disclosure Policies,” Journal of Corporate Finance, Volume 66, February 2021, Article 101762.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2020.101762
Nanda, Vikram and Reza Farhadi, “What Do Employees Know? Quality Perception and ‘Over-Satisfaction’ in Firms Going Public,” Journal of Corporate Finance, Volume 66, February 2021, Article 101779.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcorpfin.2020.101779
Siegenthaler, Simon, James Andreoni and Nikos Nikiforakis, “Predicting Social Tipping and Norm Change in Controlled Experiments,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States of America, April 20, 2021:118 (16) e2014893118.
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2014893118
Upcoming Events
For MS in Finance chat session and online Information Session schedules, click here.
