Department of Finance

Faculty & Staff

Faculty

Paul K. Asabere, Professor
Office: 206 Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.1678
Email: pasabere@temple.edu | Web: http://astro.temple.edu/~pasabere/

Biography:
Dr. Paul K. Asabere has been at Temple University since 1989. He has published over thirty scholarly articles in top-tier academic journal such as: Journal of Regional Science; Land Economics; Urban Economics; Urban Studies; Real Estate Economics; Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics; Journal of Real Estate Research, and The Appraisal Journal. He is on the editorial boards of two major real estate journals: Journal of Real Estate Research, and the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics. He is currently working on housing and land policy studies for African countries. Dr. Asabere has received several research grants (or awards) including grants from the foundation of the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors (1990) and U.S.A.I.D Research Grant for study in Ghana (1979/80). Dr.Asabere has participated in scores of academic/professional conferences and seminars. Dr. Asabere was awarded Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Spring 2000. Recent consulting include: Comptroller of Public Accounts (State of Texas) and The Pine Lands Commission (State of New Jersey)

Michael Boldin , Assistant Professor
Office: 206A Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.4896
Email: michael.boldin@temple.edu

Biography:

Michael Boldin received his PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1990, with fields in Finance and Monetary Economics. He also holds a BBA in economics from Temple University. Dr. Boldin has a strong interest in econometric applications in the Finance field. He has expertise in the construction of macroeconomic and financial databases and their application to both historical and real time analysis. Dr. Boldin has held positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, The Conference Board, and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Most recently he was Director of Research Services at the Wharton School, where he directed the team that helped to make Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) a popular tool for analyzing financial data among business school faculty throughout the world. He also has taught at the University of Pennsylvania, New York University and Rutgers University.

Edward Boyer, Assistant Professor
Office: 206A Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.4896
Email: eboyer@temple.edu

Biography:
Dr. Edward Boyer served ten years as an economist in the Bell System prior to entering the teaching profession. While employed by Bell Atlantic (Verizon), Dr. Boyer managed a research staff responsible for demand analysis, econometric modeling, and financial forecasting and analysis. During this time, Dr. Boyer also served on the advisory board to the Rutgers University Workshop on Public Utility Regulation. Dr. Boyer was also employed at the Bell Laboratories engaged in research directed toward the interaction between competitive and financial strategies. Since joining Temple in 1993, Dr. Boyer has taught corporate finance in the Executive MBA, the Full-time MBA, Professional MBA and undergraduate programs. In 1999, Dr. Boyer was awarded the “Excellence in Teaching” award by the Fox MBA Student Association. Dr. Boyer has published in the International Finance Review and in the Fundamentals of Strategic Management. In addition, Dr. Boyer published a book, Exceling in Finance, presenting spreadsheet methods for solving problems in corporate finance.

Zhaohui Chen, Assistant Professor
Office: 206A Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.8139
Email: zhchen@temple.edu

J. Jay Choi, Laura H. Carnell Professor of Finance and International Business
Office: 204F Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.5084
Email: jjchoi@temple.edu | Web: http://astro.temple.edu/~jjchoi/

Biography:
Dr. J. Jay Choi is Laura H. Carnell Professor of Finance and International Business at Temple University. He teaches international finance, capital markets, and corporate finance. He is a doctoral advisor in international business, and a member of Faculty Council of Institute of Global Management Studies and CIBER. He is a recipient of Musser Award for Excellence in Leadership and Distinguished Faculty Alumni Research Fellowship, and an inductee of Research Roundtable. Previously he was on the faculty of Columbia Business School and an international economist at Chase Manhattan Bank. He has been a visiting faculty at University of Hawaii, University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), NYU (Stern), International University of Japan, and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. As an author of over fifty articles and books and over one hundred presentations, he is an internationally renowned scholar in international financial management, exchange risk management, and emerging market finance. He is a Founding Editor of an Elsevier Science book series, International Finance Review, an editor of Journal of Economics and Business, and on the editorial boards for a number of journals.

Elyas Elyasiani, Professor
Office: 205 Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.5881
Email: elyas@temple.edu, Web: http://astro.temple.edu/~elyas/

Biography:
Dr. Elyas Elyasiani joined Temple in 1980. His main area of expertise is banking and financial institutions. Dr. Elyasiani has done research in bank and insurance company stock return modeling, risk exposure, efficiency, international spillover of shocks, and minority and foreign ownership effects, as well as quantitative finance, debt maturity, and monetary economics. His publications have appeared in the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Financial Research, Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, and Journal of Financial Services Research. Dr. Elyasiani has taught at Michigan State University, Temple University, and Bar Ilan University in Israel at the Ph.D., MBA, and undergraduate levels. He was also a visiting scholar at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. He also serves as an editor of the Journal of Economics and Business.

Manak Gupta, Professor
Office: 205B Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.8143
Email: mcgupta@temple.edu

Biography:
Dr. Manak Gupta has served on the faculties of Pennsylvania State University, State University of New York at Buffalo prior joining the Fox School. He teaches undergraduate, MBA, and Ph.D. courses and has served on the dissertation committees of several students within and outside the Finance Department. Both his teaching and research is focused primarily on the topic of corporate finance. Dr. Gupta has published in top-tier journals such as Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Journal of Accounting Research. His research has been translated and republished in several languages. He has presented papers and chaired sessions in numerous professional associations such as The American Finance Association, The American Institute of Decision Sciences, The Operations Research Society of America, Western Finance Association, Financial Management Association, and The Econometric Society of America.

Forrest Huffman, Professor
Office: 206 Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.6675
Email: fhuffman@temple.edu

Biography:
Professor Forrest Huffman is a professor in the Department of Finance and program director for real estate. His academic research interests are in corporate real estate usage, real estate investment, real property taxation and real estate markets. He has published in the major academic real estate journals including Real Estate Economics, Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics and The Journal of Real Estate Research in addition to many others. His membership affiliations include AREUEA, ARES, CORENET, IAAO, and LAI. Professor Huffman has taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels in real estate for over 25 years including courses in real estate fundamentals, finance, appraisal, investment, property management and real estate markets.

R. Steven Kamp, Assistant Professor
Office: 205E Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.7016
Email: kamp@temple.edu

Biography:
Steve Kamp has over thirty years of success in a broad variety of positions in finance. Beginning his career on Wall Street, he built customer relationships, provided investment advisory services to individuals and institutions, managed underwriting syndicates for Merrill Lynch, and directed both new business development and training for the investment banking group at Paine Webber. A passion for education and teaching eventually led to worldwide consulting and executive education assignments in finance with emphasis on working capital management, financial analysis, mergers and acquisitions, and finance for non-financial executives. Steve’s activities at Temple’s Fox School include teaching a variety of finance courses to undergraduate and MBA students as well as acting as faculty advisor to the Financial Management Association student group.

Howard Keen, Assistant Professor
Office: 206G Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.5990
E-mail: hkeen@temple.edu

Biography:
Dr. Howard Keen served as Senior Banking Economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia and as Chief Economist for Consolidated Rail Corporation prior to joining Temple University. During his years at Conrail, Dr. Keen became a nationally recognized business economist whose work was cited in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Business Week and USAToday. He has served as President or Director of national business economics, forecasting, and economic education organizations, and has received national recognition for accuracy in economic forecasting. Dr. Keen has published articles on management and regulation of financial institutions, analysis of national and regional business conditions, and techniques and analyses of economic forecasting.

Kenneth J. Kopecky, W.D. Fuller Professor of Economics and Finance, Department Chair
Office: 329 Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.8279
Email: kkopecky@temple.edu | Web: http://astro.temple.edu/~kkopecky/

Biography:
Dr. Kenneth Kopecky was an assistant professor at Ohio State University before joining the Federal Reserve Board in Washington D.C. as a senior economist. While at the Board, Ken worked on the Monetary Control Act of 1980 and the re-evaluation of the Federal Open Market Committee’s operating procedures. Dr. Kopecky’s areas of expertise include monetary economics and financial markets. He has published more than 30 refereed articles in the leading journals of the field including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of International Economics, and Journal of International Money and Finance. Since coming to Temple in 1988, Ken has taught courses in both economics and finance, and has served as assistant dean for graduate programs, chairperson of the department of finance, and executive editor of the Journal of Economics and Business.

Connie Mao, Associate Professor
Office: 206 Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.4895
Email: cmao@temple.edu | Web: http://astro.temple.edu/~cmao/

Biography:
Dr. Connie X. Mao is an Associate Professor of Finance at Temple University’s School of Business and Management. She holds a doctorate in Finance from The Johnson School of Management at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), and a doctorate in Biomedical Science from Cornell University Medical School (New York, NY). Professor Mao is specialized in studying the effect of ‘agency’ conflicts on the financing decisions of firms and analyzing how the resolution of these conflicts influences the efficiency of security markets. Her research has been published in several national premier journals including the Journal of Finance and Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. Professor Mao is a member of the American Finance Association and Financial Management Association.

Lalitha Naveen, Assistant Professor
Office: 316 Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.6435
Email: lnaveen@temple.edu | Web: http://astro.temple.edu/~lnaveen/

Biography:
Lalitha Naveen graduated from Arizona State University in 2001. Her field of expertise is empirical corporate finance. She has worked in the areas of corporate board structure and executive compensation and has papers forthcoming in leading finance and accounting journals including the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and the Journal of Accounting and Economics. One of her papers also won the Best Paper Award at the Northern Finance Association Meetings. She has taught at Purdue University and Georgia State University before she joined Temple University.

Herbert E. Phillips, Professor
Office: 204E Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.8141
E-mail: hep@temple.edu

Biography:
Dr. Herbert E. Phillips is Professor of Finance at Temple University and associate editor of The International Review of Financial Analysis. Prior to his appointment at Temple University, he was a member of the faculty at the State University of New York at Buffalo. Dr. Phillips earned a BA at Western Washington State University and Ph.D. at the University of Washington. He was previously a SAGE computer systems analyst at System Development Corporation. Dr. Phillips is a frequent contributor to the finance literature, especially in the area of normative portfolio theory. He is co-author of a textbook on investments, but many of his writings are extremely critical of current investment theories and the general equilibrium assumptions upon which they which they are based. His recent monograph, Forty Years of Normative Portfolio Theory: Issues, Controversies, and Misconceptions, is a review and a critique of many now standard investment theories and approaches.

Bruce B. Rader, Assistant Professor
Office: 205C Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.5231
Email: brader@temple.edu

Biography:
Dr. Bruce B. Rader (Ph.D. University of Houston 1995), prior to receiving his Ph.D., has had a variety of experience including project management for a wide range of civil engineering projects and institutional sales of fixed income securities. Since joining Temple University’s Fox School of business in 1996, Dr. Rader has taught courses in derivatives, corporate finance, investments and valuation on both the undergraduate and graduate levels. He is a strong advocate of developing critical thinking skills in students in the application of financial theory. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst who opinions are quoted by the local news, and his financial market commentary is and has been broadcasted by local TV and radio stations.

David Reeb, Professor
Office: 326 Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.6117
Email: dreeb@temple.edu | Web: http://astro.temple.edu/~dreeb

Biography:
Dr. David Reeb's research has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, The Economist, Financial Times, International Herald Tribune, Inc., and several other major newspapers. He has published in some of the most influential journals in Finance, Accounting, and International Business (Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Accounting Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Accounting Auditing and Finance, Financial Analyst Journal, and others). Dr. Reeb has presented his work on multinational firms, founding-family ownership, CEO compensation, and board of director structure at conferences in the US, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. He is also recognized as an outstanding teacher (graduate and undergraduate) and has conducted several corporate seminars and workshops for managers and executives.

Jonathan A. Scott, Associate Professor
Office: 368 Speakman Hall
Voice: 215.204.7605
Fax: Voice: 215.204.1697
Email: jonathan.scott@temple.edu | Web: www.astro.temple.edu/~scottjon

Biography:
Dr. Jonathan Scott has been at Temple University since 1991, serving in the Dean’s office before returning to the faculty in 1996. Prior to joining Temple, he was a senior financial executive at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas. He has taught courses at the undergraduate, MBA, and executive MBA (Philadelphia and Tokyo). Dr. Scott was awarded the 1998 SBM Honors Teacher of the year, 1999 Andrisani-Frank Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 2000 Musser Award for Leadership in Teaching. Dr. Scott’s research activities focus on small business access to credit markets and he is an adjunct scholar with the National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation. His publications have appeared in Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Money Credit and Banking, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Economics and Business, Financial Analysts Journal, and Financial Review.

John Soss, Assistant Professor
Office: Speakman 206C
Phone: 215.204.8453 | Fax: 215.204.1697
Email: jsoss@temple.edu

Biography:
Dr. John Soss has over twenty years of distinguished experience in the practice and study of international capital markets. He leads the Fox School’s financial engineering program following a dynamic investment banking career in New York and London, including senior positions at S.G. Warburg and the Union Bank of Switzerland. Dr. Soss managed derivatives franchise business in North America, Europe and Asia. Additionally, his professional background includes spearheading specialized structured product and quantitative research teams. Dr. Soss’ teaching and research interests focus on global derivatives and international financial markets. He was the recipient of numerous awards for excellence in teaching, including the Fox School’s 2007 FMA Teacher of the Year.

Yuzhao Zhang, Assistant Professor
Office: Speakman 204C
Phone: 215.204.1917 | Fax: 215.204.1697
Email: yuzhao.zhang@temple.edu

Biography:

Yuzhao Zhang is currently an Assistant Professor of Finance in the Fox School of Business at the Temple University. He earned his PhD in finance from the University of California Los Angeles in 2008, an M.S. of mathematics in finance from the New York University in 2002. He is a member of the American Finance Association and Western Finance Association. His research interests include asset pricing, financial econometrics and derivatives. He teaches courses in investment and portfolio theory.