UChicago News

Chicago Booth’s Douglas Diamond wins Onassis Prize in Finance

Wed, 25 Apr 2018 09:30 -0500

Prof. Douglas W. Diamond, one of the world's leading authorities on bank runs and liquidity crises who is considered the father of modern banking theory, has been awarded the 2018 Onassis Prize in Finance.

Awarded every three years, the Onassis Prize recognizes the world’s foremost academics in the fields of finance, international trade and shipping, to honor outstanding academic achievements that have had international significance. Nobel laureate and Chicago Booth scholar Eugene Fama won the inaugural prize in finance in 2009.

“I am delighted to receive the Onassis Prize,” said Diamond, the Merton H. Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. “After the recent financial crisis, policymakers and scholars have a renewed focus on the stability of financial institutions.”

Diamond changed the way people view banks through his pioneering research, which laid the groundwork for how central bankers, regulators, policymakers and academics approach modern finance. His research agenda for the past 30 years has been to explain what banks do, why they do it and the consequences of these arrangements.

Named after Aristotle Onassis who excelled in these three disciplines, each Onassis Prize is worth $200,000; they are sponsored by the Onassis Foundation and awarded jointly by Cass Business School London with the Onassis Foundation.

—This story first appeared on the Chicago Booth website.

Prof. Richard Thaler delivers Nobel Prize lecture

Fri, 08 Dec 2017 13:37 -0600

Until Prof. Richard H. Thaler came along, economists resisted the idea of basing their models on how real people behave. The reality is people don’t always know what they want, much less what’s best for them.

In October, Thaler was honored with the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel for his pioneering scholarship in the field of behavioral economics. On Dec. 8, the Chicago Booth scholar delivered his Nobel lecture in Stockholm as part of a weeklong celebration of the 2017 Nobel laureates. He will receive his Nobel Medal on Dec. 10 at a white-tie-and-tails affair at the Stockholm Concert Hall. (Live webcast begins at 7:30 a.m. CST here).

In his Nobel speech, entitled “From Cashews to Nudges: The Evolution of Behavioral Economics,” Thaler told stories of various field experiments in his everyday life—ranging from a dinner party as a graduate student in Rochester, N.Y. in the 1970s to the Swedish government’s present-day effort to get its citizens to sign up for retirement plans.

Prof. Richard Thaler delivers the 2017 Nobel Prize Lecture in Economic Sciences on Dec. 8. (Photo by Henrik Montgomery / TT)

“One lesson from these stories is that there are a bunch of things economic theory says we can leave out, and in fact, makes the strong prediction that they simply will not matter,” Thaler said in his Nobel address. “I call these ‘supposedly irrelevant factors.’ And really my research can be summarized as there are a lot of these supposedly irrelevant factors that are not irrelevant. They matter.”

Thaler launched his journey as one of the founders of behavioral economics with a bowl of cashews at a dinner party. He was concerned his guests were eating too many and that it would spoil their appetites, so he took them away. His guests, all economists, were happy when he removed the nuts, and that led to a discussion: How could they be happy, given that a first principle of economics is more choices are better than fewer choices?

“If we learn from other social scientists, we can improve economics and increase its explanatory power, and it can give us new tools we can use to improve people’s outcome. In short, we can nudge them.”Prof. Richard H. Thaler

Prof. Richard Thaler to receive Nobel Prize this weekend

Wed, 06 Dec 2017 12:29 -0600

Nearly two months have passed since a 4 a.m. call from Sweden changed the life of economist Richard Thaler.

That morning, Thaler called receiving the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, the culmination of “a long journey” of scholarship. Known as one of the founding fathers of behavioral economics, Thaler, the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, said his field had come a long way since being “out in the wilderness” 40 years ago.

“When you’re doing research that’s a little unusual, and your approach is unusual, and you’re criticizing some of the other people in the field, you never know whether anybody’s taking it seriously,” said Thaler, who is in Stockholm, Sweden this week to receive his award.

Thaler will deliver the Nobel Prize Lecture in Economic Sciences on Dec. 8 and receive his Nobel medal on Dec. 10. (Both events will be webcast live on the Nobel website.) Thaler is the 90th scholar associated with UChicago to be awarded a Nobel Prize and sixth current member of the UChicago faculty.

“The last month has been frenetic, so I don’t know if it has sunk in,” Thaler said. “I’m not sure it will sink in until I get back from Stockholm.”

A view of the Stockholm Concert Hall, where Prof. Richard Thaler will receive his Nobel Prize medal during a Dec. 10 ceremony. (Photo by Frank Augstein/Associated Press)

‘A speech to the general public’

Author of the best-selling book Nudge, Thaler is renowned for research showing how human behavior contradicts traditional economic logic. And much like his groundbreaking scholarship, Thaler will be taking a different approach to his Nobel lecture.

Charged with delivering a 35-minute Nobel address, Thaler hopes to make it visual and “not bogged down in technical details.” Thaler knows a few things about writing a Nobel lecture, having heard five Nobel lectures in the two times he’s attended the ceremony—including 2002, when friend and former Stanford University colleague Daniel Kahneman was honored.

“Thirty-five minutes is not that long, and I don’t talk that fast. For the speech, I’m just trying to think about what is the best introduction of this material for 500 to 800 mostly Swedish residents of Stockholm,” Thaler said. “It’s not a speech to experts; it’s not a speech to my colleagues—it’s a speech to the general public.”

Thaler described the day the Nobel Prize was announced on Oct. 9 as a blur. He recalls the flood of congratulatory messages and a news conference at Booth, but also teaching a class that night at the Gleacher Center.

The work of a scholar, Nobel-winning or not, never ends. Soon after Stockholm, Thaler will return to research and tackling the task of writing a technical research paper for Nobel, due Jan. 31, which will be published in the American Economic Review.

“When you wake up in the morning, you still have to brush your teeth and take a shower—and pretty much life goes on,” Thaler said. “People have asked me: ‘Do your colleagues treat you any differently?’ No. They may have cut me slack for 10 or 15 minutes, and then it’s back to normal.”

Richard Thaler wins Nobel Prize 'for his contributions to behavioural economics'

Mon, 09 Oct 2017 05:06 -0500

University of Chicago Prof. Richard H. Thaler has been awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2017.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Thaler, the Charles R. Walgreen Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, “for his contributions to behavioural economics,” a relatively new field that bridges the gap between economics and psychology. Thaler’s research investigates the implications of relaxing the standard economic assumption that everyone in the economy is rational and selfish, instead entertaining the possibility that some of the agents in the economy are sometimes human.

“Richard’s original, broadly influential and paradigm-defining work has richly earned this recognition,” President Robert J. Zimmer wrote in a message to the UChicago community. “We look forward to celebrating Richard’s work and his place in the distinguished legacy of eminent economics research at the University of Chicago.”

He is among the 90 scholars associated with the University to receive Nobel Prizes, and among the 29 who have received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. In addition to Thaler, five current UChicago faculty members are Nobel laureates in economics: Profs. Eugene Fama and Lars Hansen (who won in 2013), Roger Myerson (2007), James Heckman (2000) and Robert E. Lucas Jr. (1995).

Thaler learned of the award after his cell phone rang at 4 a.m. The phone number was from Sweden, so “I had a pretty good idea what that might be,” he said Monday. The award was particularly meaningful because behavioral economics was “really out in the wilderness 40 years ago,” when Thaler began his research.

“It’s been a long journey,” he said, “so I’m happy about that.”

‘Knowledge with enduring impact’

At a news conference Monday morning in the Charles M. Harper Center, Chicago Booth Dean Madhav Rajan said Thaler “represents the quintessence of Chicago Booth’s mission: to produce knowledge with enduring impact, and to influence and educate current and future leaders.” Rajan also credited Thaler with helping to build Chicago Booth’s faculty in behavioral science, “vastly expanding the school’s footprint and stature in this field.”

Thaler, who took the stage to cheering from the excited students and faculty who had lined the staircases of the Winter Garden, described the experience being a Booth faculty member as one of “tough love. The behavioral science group, it’s a little less tough, but only a little.”

He admitted he hadn’t persuaded all of his colleagues and fellow economists of the importance of behavioral economics, so instead, “I’ve used the strategy of corrupting the youth, whose minds aren’t already made up,” he said. “Many great, young economists have embraced behavioral economics…The growth of the field is really due to the work of the people that followed me.”

Spotting fellow Nobel laureate Eugene Fama, the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, in the front row, Thaler added, “It’s been good to be here all these 20 years, arguing with guys like Fama. It’s good for me.” These days, however, “[we] try to keep our arguments to the golf course.”

Prof. Richard Thaler talks to Cass Sunstein, his former UChicago scholar and his Nudge coauthor, via Skype from his living room after winning the Nobel Prize. (Photo by Anne Ryan)

‘The father of behavioral economics’

Thaler, who has been dubbed the “father of behavioral economics,” wrote the bestselling books Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics (2015) and Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness (2008). He is renowned for creating easy-to-understand scenarios that show how human behavior often contradicts traditional economic logic.

Many economic models, Thaler told National Public Radio last year, assume people are rational, unemotional, and self-controlled. “I believe that for the last 50 or 60 years, economists have devoted themselves to studying fictional creatures,” he said. “They might as well be studying unicorns.” Every day, his research reveals, we behave in ways that violate economic principles.

In keeping with his research into these human idiosyncrasies, Thaler joked in a Nobel news conference Monday morning that he planned to spend the 9 million Swedish krona (about $1.1 million USD) he will receive with the prize “as irrationally as possible.”

In Misbehaving, which Financial Times named one of the six most influential business books of 2015, Thaler chronicles the struggle to bring the academic discipline of economics back down to earth and reveals how behavioral economic analysis can change the way we think about everything from household finances to the NFL draft.

For instance, Thaler’s research has challenged the classical economic notion that money is fungible—that is, that one dollar is the same as any other dollar. But Thaler’s work on mental accounting, one of the areas of research highlighted by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in its Nobel citation, has shown that, in practice, people don’t treat money this way. Instead, they mentally earmark money for specific purposes, such as housing, food, and travel, and make financial decisions based on how those decisions will affect each small fund. “Money in one mental account is not a perfect substitute for money in another account,” Thaler wrote in a 1999 paper.

Thaler illustrated the point with his own Nobel win. Most economists, he said at the news conference, would challenge the premise of a question like, “What do you plan to do with your prize money?” Because they view money as “fungible,” they wouldn’t—in theory—distinguish prize money from any other money.

Not Thaler. “I believe in something called mental accounting, which is precisely people putting labels on money,” he explained. “Anytime I spend any money [on something] that’s really fun, I’m going to say that came from the Nobel Prize.”

‘Make it easy’

Nudge, coauthored with Harvard Law School Professor Cass R. Sunstein, explores how the concepts of behavioral economics can be used to tackle many of society’s major problems and influence public policy. Ranked as the Best Book of the Year by The Economist and Financial Times, the research prompted the United Kingdom’s government in 2010 to establish a Behavioral Insight Team, or “Nudge Unit,” to create policies that nudge British citizens to make better choices and, in turn, save the state money. Thaler served as an advisor in setting up the unit’s guiding principles.

At the heart of Nudge is what Thaler calls his “mantra”: “If you want to get people to do something, make it easy. Remove the obstacles,” he explained. “Nudges” push people toward better choices by making those choices easy. For example, employers can “nudge” employees by automatically enrolling them in a retirement savings plan, rather than requiring them to opt in; schools can “nudge” kids toward healthy food choices by putting fruit at eye level.

“If you want to get people to do something, make it easy. Remove the obstacles.” Prof. Richard Thaler on the mantra behind 'Nudge'

Thaler’s other books include Quasi-Rational Economics and The Winner's Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life. His work has been published in the American Economics Review, the Journal of Finance, and the Journal of Political Economy.

Thaler was named in 2015 to Bloomberg Markets 50 Most Influential People; he also was the American Economic Association’s president for 2015. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2000.

Before joining the Chicago Booth faculty in 1995, Thaler taught at the University of Rochester and Cornell University. He also served as a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia, the Sloan School of Management at MIT, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

Originally from New Jersey, Thaler attended Case Western Reserve University where he received a bachelor's degree in 1967. Soon after, he attended the University of Rochester where he received a master's degree in 1970 and a PhD in 1974.

Alexander Beilinson, Douglas Diamond elected to National Academy of Sciences

Wed, 03 May 2017 14:22 -0500

Two University of Chicago faculty members have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences: Alexander Beilinson, the David and Mary Winton Green University Professor of Mathematics; and Douglas W. Diamond, the Merton H. Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance. They are among the 84 new members the academy announced May 2.

Beilinson is a mathematician who has done pioneering work in algebraic geometry, geometric representation theory and mathematical physics. His “Beilinson Conjectures” serve as a guiding influence in the field of arithmetic geometry, while Beilinson has made substantial contributions to geometric representation theory. Beilinson’s work with Vladimir Drinfeld, the Harry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor at UChicago, is critical to geometric Langlands theory.

Beilinson’s honors include the Ostrowski Prize and Moscow Mathematical Society Prize and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A member of the UChicago faculty since 1998, Beilinson is one of eight University professors, selected for internationally recognized eminence in their field and potential for high impact across the University.

Considered the father of modern banking theory, Diamond changed the way people view banks. His pioneering research laid the groundwork for how central bankers, regulators, policymakers and academics approach modern finance. A UChicago faculty member since 1979, Diamond is known for his research into financial intermediaries, financial crises and liquidity. His research agenda for the past 30 years has been to explain what banks do, why they do it and the consequences of these arrangements.

His groundbreaking work on bank runs and financial crises earned him the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group-MSRI Prize in Innovative Quantitative Applications in 2015. He received the Morgan Stanley-American Finance Association Award for Excellence in Finance in 2012. Diamond is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Finance Association.

Prof. Amir Sufi awarded Fischer Black Prize honoring top finance scholar under 40

Wed, 11 Jan 2017 11:45 -0600

Amir Sufi, the Bruce Lindsay Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has been awarded the 2017 Fischer Black Prize by the American Finance Association.

Honored for his groundbreaking research on household debt and the financial crisis, Sufi received the award Jan. 7 at the annual meeting of the American Finance Association.

Recognizing the top finance scholar under the age of 40, the Fischer Black Prize honors the memory of Fischer Black, formerly a general partner at Goldman Sachs and a professor at Chicago Booth and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose seminal research included the development (with Myron Scholes) of the widely applied Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model.

Established in 2002, the biennial prize honors individual financial research and is awarded for a body of work that best exemplifies the Fischer Black hallmark of developing original research that is relevant to finance practice.

Sufi’s research on household debt, the Great Recession, consumption and the economy has been publicized widely and has been presented to policymakers at the Federal Reserve, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs, and the White House Council of Economic Advisors.

His body of recent research on debt forms the basis of his book co-authored with Atif Mian: House of Debt: How They (and You) Caused the Great Recession and How We Can Prevent It from Happening Again, which was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2014. The book made the Financial Times shortlist for “Best Business Book of the Year” in 2014.

Sufi and his co-author reveal in House of Debt how the Great Recession and Great Depression, as well as the current economic malaise in Europe, were caused by a large run-up in household debt followed by a significantly large drop in household spending.

"We are delighted that Amir has been recognized in this way. His work on debt markets and particularly the role of household debt in the financial crisis is truly path-breaking, and continues to have important implications for the U.S. economy,” said Douglas Skinner, interim dean of Chicago Booth.

“It is remarkable that, of the seven times this award has been given since its inception in 2003, Booth faculty have won three times.”

Other Booth recipients of the prize include Prof. Raghuram Rajan, who was awarded the inaugural prize in 2003; and former Booth faculty member Tobias Moskowitz, who taught at Booth from 1998-2016 and received the prize in 2007.

Sufi has been a member of the Booth faculty since 2005.

Juan de Pablo to receive 2016 DuPont Medal for excellence in nutrition and health science

Wed, 25 May 2016 10:11 -0500

The Danisco Foundation has selected the University of Chicago’s Juan de Pablo as the recipient of the DuPont Nutrition and Health Science and Excellence Medal 2016.

The Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, de Pablo will be honored for his work that led to optimal processes to stabilize live bacteria for survival and extended stability performance after lyophilization (freeze-drying). Such processes are now used throughout the world in the food and probiotic industries. de Pablo holds several patents on the underlying technology, which also has pharmaceutical and medical applications for preservation of drugs, cells and tissue.

The technology that de Pablo and his students developed was originally inspired by nature’s own mechanisms to withstand prolonged periods of drought and low temperatures. His team developed detailed molecular models to explain such mechanisms, whose results were subsequently translated into working bacterial formulations and processes.

The foundation grants the medal upon recommendations from DuPont Nutrition & Health’s Technical Fellows to a senior scientist broadly recognized by the fellows for scientific and operational excellence and a remarkable record of accomplishment in the industry. DuPont Fellows are scientists and engineers who define new technologies, influence research directions, and mentor scientists both inside and outside the company. The award includes an invitation to address the Nutrution and Health Technical Fellows at a ceremony to be held in Denmark.

Danisco, a subsidiary of DuPont, is a Danish biotech company that employs more than 7,000 people in more than 40 countries. Its products, used in ice cream, jams, bread, and many other food products, are eaten regularly by more than 100 million people worldwide.

American Academy of Arts and Sciences elects 12 members with UChicago ties

Thu, 23 Apr 2015 15:30 -0500

The newly elected class of members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences includes five UChicago faculty members and seven additional University alumni, including University Trustee Joseph Neubauer, MBA’65.

One of the nation’s most prestigious honorary societies, the American Academy is also a leading center for independent policy research. Members contribute to Academy publications and studies of science and technology policy, global security and international affairs, social policy and American institutions, and the humanities, arts and education.

Members of the 2015 class include recipients of the Nobel and Pulitzer prizes; MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships; and Grammy, Emmy, Oscar and Tony awards.

“We are honored to elect a new class of extraordinary women and men to join our distinguished membership,” said Don Randel, chair of the Academy’s Board of Directors. “Each new member is a leader in his or her field and has made a distinct contribution to the nation and the world. We look forward to engaging them in the intellectual life of this vibrant institution.”

Since its founding in 1780, the Academy has elected leading “thinkers and doers” from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Margaret Mead and Martin Luther King Jr. in the 20th. The current membership includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners.

The full list of the new members is available at https://www.amacad.org/content/members/members.aspx.

The UChicago faculty members and alumni elected to the academy are:

László Babai, the George and Elizabeth Yovovich Professor in Computer Science and Mathematics, specializes in complexity theory, algorithms, combinatorics, asymptotic group theory, and the many interactions among these fields, including problems of pure mathematics motivated by questions in the theory of computing. His honors include the international Gödel Prize (1993) in theoretical computer science for developing the concept of interactive proofs, which helped reshape the landscape of the theory of algorithms. In 1994 he was a plenary speaker at the quadrennial International Congress of Mathematicians, a coveted honor in the field. In an indication of potential applications of his foundational work to emerging technologies, so-called “Babai points” in n-dimensional grids have been widely cited in the area of mobile communications. Babai is one of the founders of the highly acclaimed study-abroad program “Budapest Semesters in Mathematics” (1985). In 2005 Babai launched the prominent open-access journal Theory of Computing. In the same year he received the University’s Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

Matthew Gentzkow, the Richard O. Ryan Professor of Economics, studies empirical industrial organization and political economy, with a specific focus on media industries. His work, which has been covered by major national media, has appeared in the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, and Econometrica. In 2014 Gentzkow received the American Economic Association’s John Bates Clark Medal, given to an American economist under the age of 40 who has made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. He has also received an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and also has been awarded several National Science Foundation grants for research on media, and won a Faculty Excellence Award for teaching.

Françoise Meltzer, the Edward Carson Waller Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities, Divinity School, and the College, studies contemporary critical theory and 19th-century French, English and German literature. Meltzer’s publications include Hot Property: The Stakes and Claims of Literary Originality (1994), For Fear of the Fire: Joan of Arc and the Limits of Subjectivity (2001) and Seeing Double: Baudelaire's Modernity (2011). With her colleague Jas Elsner, she edited Saints: Faith Without Borders (2011). She has edited Critical Inquiry since 1982. In 2006, Meltzer received the Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Palmes Académiques (Knight in the Order of the Academic Palms) from the French government, the highest honor for academics in France. She began teaching at UChicago in 1975.

Ray Pierrehumbert, the Louis Block Professor in Geophysical Sciences, has research interests that include the physics of climate, especially regarding the long-term evolution of planetary climates. Pierrehumbert is serving the current academic year as a King Carl XVI Gustaf Professor in Environmental Science at Stockholm University’s department of meteorology. The university will award him an honorary doctorate later this year. He was a co-author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Third Assessment (1997-2001). He has been recognized for his contributions to this work, for which the IPCC was awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, jointly with Al Gore, “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” Pierrehumbert also is the author of Principles of Planetary Climate, and co-editor of The Warming Papers: The Scientific Foundation for the Climate Change Forecast. A former Guggenheim Fellow, he also is a fellow of the American Geophysical Union.

Philip J. Reny, the William C. Norby Professor of Economics is an economic theorist who focuses on auction theory, game theory and the theory of mechanism design. Among his most important contributions are his results on the existence of Nash equilibrium in discontinuous games and his work on information aggregation in double auctions. Reny serves on the board of editors for American Economic Journal: Microeconomics and served as the head editor of Journal of Political Economy. He became a fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory in 2012, a charter member of the Game Theory Society in 1999 and a fellow of the Econometric Society in 1996.

Joseph Neubauer, MBA’65, will begin a three-year term as chairman of the University of Chicago’s Board of Trustees on May 28. Neubauer, the retired chairman of ARAMARK Corporation, has served as a trustee since 1992. He serves as chair of The University of Chicago Campaign: Inquiry and Impact, which launched in October 2014 with a goal of $4.5 billion. After earning his MBA, Neubauer took positions at Chase Manhattan Bank and PepsiCo. In 1979 he joined ARAMARK, a worldwide provider of food, hospitality and other professional services, as chief financial officer. He served for nearly three decades as ARAMARK’s chief executive officer and later board chairman. During his tenure the company grew revenues from $2 billion to $14 billion and employed more than 250,000 people in 23 countries. Neubauer and his wife Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer received the University of Chicago Medal in 2013. Awarded by the Board of Trustees, the University Medal recognizes distinguished service of the highest order to the University by an individual or a couple.

Other University of Chicago alumni who have been elected members of the Academy this year are: Jane C. Ginsburg, AB’76, AM’77; Richard Kurin, AM’74, PhD’81; Teresa A. Sullivan, AM’72, PhD’75; David S. Tatel, JD’66; Peter C. Wainwright, PhD’88; and Iván Werning, AM’99, PhD’02.

Chicago Booth’s New Venture Challenge ranks among top accelerator programs in country

Fri, 20 Mar 2015 16:00 -0500

The premier startup program at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the Edward L. Kaplan, ’71, New Venture Challenge, was recently named a top accelerator program in the United States.

The NVC, which is run by the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Chicago Booth, ranked fourth in research released by the Seed Accelerator Rankings Program. Independent accelerator programs Angelpad, MuckerLab and Techstars landed in the top three. Stanford University’s StartX, which ranked sixth, was the only other university accelerator program listed in the top 10.

“This ranking puts a spotlight on university accelerator programs,” said Steve Kaplan, faculty director of the Polsky Center and the Neubauer Family Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Finance at Booth. “For the past 19 years, our NVC program has pioneered many of the same elements found in most accelerator programs today.”

This was the first year in which university accelerators were included in the annual research conducted by the Seed Accelerator Rankings Project. Accelerators are defined as a fixed-term, cohort-based program that includes mentorship, educational components and culminates in a public pitch event or demo day. Both independent and university accelerators meeting this definition were asked to submit information on companies that participated in their accelerator program between 2005 and 2014.

“We always knew university accelerator programs provided great educational opportunities for entrepreneurs,” said Yael Hochberg, managing director of the Seed Accelerator Rankings Project, and the Ralph S. O’Connor Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business. “By including universities in our research, our goal is to offer insights for the community and measure the impact and success these university programs provide.”

Notable NVC participants included in the Seed Accelerator Rankings Project research were Braintree, which was acquired by PayPal in 2013 for $800 million; GrubHub, which completed an IPO in April 2014 and whose market cap exceeds $3.8 billion; Bump Technologies, which was acquired by Google in 2013; and Simple Mills, which raised a seed round from Hyde Park Angels in July 2014.

“We are very proud of the work that goes into supporting our student entrepreneurs,” said Ellen Rudnick, MBA’73, executive director of the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. “In May 2016, we will mark a milestone as we celebrate 20 years of our NVC program.”

Yusef Al-Jarani wins Gates Cambridge Scholarship

Wed, 11 Feb 2015 13:20 -0600

Fourth-year College student Yusef Al-Jarani has won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to study at the University of Cambridge beginning in the fall. One of 40 U.S. recipients chosen from a pool of some 800 applicants, Al-Jarani will complete an MPhil in development studies, focusing on the Middle East and North Africa.

The Gates Cambridge is awarded to students who exhibit academic excellence and leadership potential, and who demonstrate a commitment to improving others’ lives. Al-Jarani plans to work in economic development to help Arab youth find jobs. “I am grateful for this opportunity to help me get to where I want to be and help who I want to help,” Al-Jarani said.

Al-Jarani’s focus on the Arab world grew out of his childhood years traveling to Libya from his home in Troy, Ohio, to visit his father’s extended family. “As an Arab American you sort of can’t be divorced from the politics of the region,” he said.

Al-Jarani recalls the mood when longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi ruled the country. “My father would tell me not to look at anyone or speak to anyone because they could potentially be a state agent,” he said. “I remember a very authoritarian society.”

But during his most recent trip to Libya in September 2012—after Arab Spring uprisings led to Gaddafi’s overthrow—Al-Jarani saw possibilities for a new way forward. “People were the happiest I’d ever seen them,” he said. “They had suffered for so long and now was their chance to build a better life—it was a very inspirational experience for me.”

After completing his degree at Cambridge, Al-Jarani would like to develop small and medium-sized businesses in high-knowledge industries to help Middle Eastern and North African young people get jobs. He has in mind people like his cousin, a dentist, who graduated from his university with top honors but cannot find meaningful work.

“Youth in the Middle East and North Africa face very high unemployment rates, even though they are very well educated,” Al-Jarani said. “The opportunities simply are not there. I think there are ways for startup incubators and small business consultative services to help them grow their markets and create jobs.”

Al-Jarani says the bigotry and racism he has sometimes faced as an Arab Muslim growing up in the United States after 9/11 is partially what propelled him toward his goal. “In sixth grade, a girl came up to me on the playground and told me to go back to my own country,” he said. “I was born in Northern Virginia, my favorite music was hip-hop and I loved to watch Hollywood films,” he added. “I had never experienced this idea of myself as ‘Other.’ ”

That incident, however, prompted an exploration of his complex identity as both an American and a Muslim—“those two things aren’t mutually exclusive,” Al-Jarani said—and drew him closer to the region of his ancestry.

Al-Jarani is the recipient of a 2014 Harry S. Truman Scholarship. In 2013, he was awarded a U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship to study Arabic in Jordan, and he represented UChicago at the McDonald Cadet Leadership Conference at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is co-founder of the Phoenix Development Fund, a Chicago-based nonprofit providing free business development services to organizations on the city’s South Side. Twenty University of Chicago students have received Gates Cambridge Scholarships since the award’s inception in 2001.

“Yusef is a brilliant young man with a strong sense of public service,” said his advisor Robert Pape, professor in political science and co-director of the Program for International Security Politics. “His knowledge and insights on the politics of Libya are especially penetrating. He has been a leader at Chicago, and I have every confidence will be a leader at Cambridge and much beyond.”

Chicago Booth’s Gentzkow awarded 2014 Clark Medal

Fri, 18 Apr 2014 12:13 -0500

The American Economic Association has named University of Chicago Booth School of Business Professor Matthew Gentzkow winner of the 2014 John Bates Clark Medal, awarded to an American economist under the age of 40 who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge.

The Clark Medal is considered one of the two most prestigious awards in the field of economics, along with the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, and is named after the American economist John Bates Clark (1847–1938).

“Matt is an exceptional researcher, and it’s great to see him receive this well-deserved recognition,” said Sunil Kumar, dean and George Pratt Shultz Professor of Operations Management at Chicago Booth. “Matt is the most accomplished of a set of rising stars at Booth who are truly outstanding economists. We have the greatest expectations of him going forward.”

Gentzkow, the Richard O. Ryan Professor of Economics and Neubauer Family Faculty Fellow, studies empirical, industrial organization and political economy, with a specific focus on media industries.

Gentzkow’s recent studies include a set of papers that looks at political bias in the news media; a second set of studies that examines the impact of television on society from several perspectives; and a third set that explores questions of persuasion. A full list of those studies is available here.

“Matthew Gentzkow has made fundamental contributions to our understanding of the economic forces driving the creation of media products, the changing nature and role of media in the digital environment, and the effect of media on education and civic engagement,” according to the American Economic Association’s Honors and Awards Committee.

“He has been a pioneer in the area of media economics, defining questions appropriate to the changing media landscape. His work is creative without sacrificing quality. He has established himself as a role model in both substance and execution.”

Other members of the University of Chicago community to win the award include Kevin Murphy, Gary Becker, James Heckman and Steven Levitt. Some 40 percent of Clark Medal recipients go on to win the Nobel in Economic Sciences. Past Clark medalists who also won a Nobel include Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman and Kenneth Arrow.

Six UChicago scholars receive research fellowships from Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Mon, 03 Mar 2014 15:39 -0600

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has awarded six University of Chicago scholars— Maureen Coleman, Daniel Fabrycky, Zhiguo He, Maryanthe Malliaris, Brent Neiman, and Eric Glen Weyl—with 2014 Sloan Research Fellowships.

Awarded annually to 126 early-career scientists of outstanding promise in science, mathematics, economics and computer science in the United States and Canada, the fellowship program provides two-year grants of $50,000 to support original research and broad-based education related to science, technology and economic performance.

Maureen Coleman, assistant professor of geophysical sciences, studies microbial ecology and population genetics, genome structure and evolution, and the roles of microbes in biogeochemical cycles. Her research has explored the selective forces shaping microbial genomes in natural environments, the mechanisms by which genes are transferred between microbial groups, and the co-evolution between bacteriophages and their hosts.

Coleman earned a PhD in civil and environmental engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and was a recipient of the Agouron Institute Geobiology Fellowship for postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology.

Daniel Fabrycky, an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics, focuses his research on the formation and dynamical evolution of planets and stars; exoplanet detection and characterization techniques, particularly for multi-planet systems; and time-domain photometric surveys. In his current research he combines dynamical and statistical models to infer the architecture of planetary systems discovered by the Kepler space mission.

Fabrycky, who holds a PhD in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University, received a Hubble Fellowship from NASA for research at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Michelson Fellowship from NASA for research at Harvard University.

Zhiguo He, an associate professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, researches how agency frictions affect the functioning of financial markets, with a special focus on contract theory. He has been working on the burgeoning field that introduces financial intermediation into macroeconomic workhorse models. His recent research on “rollover risk” studies the debt maturity structure and its implications on the recent financial crisis.

With a PhD from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, He is a faculty research fellow in the Corporate Finance Group of the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research has won the Smith-Breeden First Prize from the American Finance Association, the Swiss Finance Institute’s Outstanding Paper Award, and the Lehman Brothers Fellowship for Research Excellence in Finance.

Maryanthe Malliaris, assistant professor of mathematics, works in model theory. She is developing a new viewpoint, tools and a theoretical framework, which will make it possible to detect and classify gradations in complexity across first-order theories in a more uniform way. A focus of her research is the structure of Keisler's order, a large-scale program of comparing the complexity of theories proposed in 1967.

Malliaris, who received a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, was awarded a Godel research prize fellowship in April 2011 for the first breakthroughs on Keisler's order in several decades. In recent joint work, Malliaris and another mathematician have discovered new dividing lines in this order and have applied tools developed for the study of Keisler's order to solve a 60-year-old problem in general topology.

Brent Neiman, associate professor of economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, is an expert on international macroeconomics, a field he was drawn to after a stint working at the White House Council of Economic Advisers in 2003-04. In one of Neiman’s papers, he and his co-authors examine prices of the same good sold in different countries and demonstrate that prices are generally equalized across countries within a currency union, like the Eurozone, even though they differ greatly across pegged and floating exchange rate regimes. In another paper, Neiman and a co-author challenge the established empirical fact that the labor share is relatively stable.

With a PhD from Harvard University, Neiman is a faculty research fellow in the International Finance and Macro and International Trade and Investment groups of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

E. Glen Weyl, assistant professor in economics, studies pure and applied price theory, with a focus on industrial and public economics as well as the intersection between economics and other disciplines, particularly law and the history and philosophy of economics. His research addresses topics ranging from the implications of the career choices of talented students for tax policy to designing new voting procedures.

Weyl, who received his PhD from Princeton University, is an associate editor for the International Journal of Industrial Organization and director of a start-up, Collective Decision Engines. He has received grants from the Milton Fund, the Harvard Real Estate Academic Initiative, the Microsoft Corporation, the Kauffman Foundation and the University of Chicago’s Neubauer Collegium.

Fourth-year economics and history student Tim Rudnicki wins Gates Cambridge scholarship

Mon, 17 Feb 2014 13:18 -0600

Tim Rudnicki is one of 40 students in the United States to win a full-cost Gates Cambridge scholarship to continue his studies at the University of Cambridge next fall.

The fourth-year from Barrington, Ill. plans to pursue an MPhil in economic and social history at Cambridge, with hopes of working in international economic development. All of his expenses will be paid through the prestigious and highly competitive scholarship.

“The work that researchers at Cambridge are doing is setting the agenda for the field, so there is no better place for me to study British economic history,” Rudnicki said. He is interested in seeing how the economic development of Britain between the 14th and 19th centuries might apply in the developing world.

Recipients of the Gates Cambridge scholarship are usually students whose work and goals align with those of the Gates Foundation, to combat poverty and poor health in developing countries.

While the study of the emergence of capitalism in Britain may not immediately seem like a match, Rudnicki says he is determined to use the past as inspiration for the present and future. “I think global poverty can be reduced through sound economic policies,” he said.

Closer to home, Rudnicki worked in health clinics on the South Side as a volunteer for the student group Health Leads, connecting patients in distress to resources like safe housing, employment, child care and food.

Rudnicki was inspired by the work, and soon formed a student group that focused on a single health clinic. The group, called “Connect,” helped create partnerships between the clinic and local churches, food banks, and childcare and employment organizations.

At UChicago, Rudnicki has been a research assistant for Glen Weyl and Mark Loeffler, assistant professor of economics and collegiate assistant professor of social sciences, respectively. He also has shown the campus to prospective students and their families as a tour coordinator in the Office of College Admissions and has served on the board of the Perspective Student Advisory Committee.

Rudnicki said the University of Chicago has offered him the “best of both worlds” as an undergraduate. “It offers a small College experience with all the resources of the city of Chicago and a large research institution,” he said.

Rudnicki will travel to the United Kingdom for the first time when he begins his studies at Cambridge. He said he is looking forward to meeting the other scholarship winners and joining a global network of future leaders committed to social progress.

Economics Nobel awarded to Eugene F. Fama and Lars Peter Hansen

Mon, 14 Oct 2013 10:42 -0500

University of Chicago professors Eugene F. Fama and Lars Peter Hansen have been awarded the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2013.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences honored Fama and Hansen, along with Robert J. Shiller of Yale University, “for their empirical analysis of asset prices.” This research helps to explain how and why the prices of stocks and bonds change over time. Fama’s work demonstrated that new information is very quickly incorporated into the market, making it difficult to predict short-term changes in asset prices. Hansen developed a statistical method for testing rational theories of asset pricing like those advanced by Fama and Shiller.

"In their work, Gene Fama and Lars Hansen have demonstrated the University's mission to address the complex challenges facing society with innovative scholarship. In doing so, they have helped shape the study of economics and the nature of today's financial markets. We are very gratified to see those accomplishments recognized internationally, and proud to count them among the Nobel laureates at the University of Chicago,” said Robert J. Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago.

Fama is the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business; Hansen is the David Rockefeller Distinguished Service Professor in Economics, Statistics, and the College, and is research director of the Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics. They are among the 89 scholars associated with the University to receive Nobels, and among the 28 who have received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. In addition to Fama and Hansen, four current faculty members are Nobel laureates in economics: Profs. Roger Myerson (who won in 2007), James Heckman (2000), Robert E. Lucas Jr. (1995), and Gary Becker (1992).

At a news conference on Monday morning, Fama credited much of his success to the intellectual culture of the University of Chicago.

“Whatever I am owes two-thirds—maybe three-quarters, maybe 90 percent—to the University of Chicago,” Fama said. “Over the years, the school [and] the economics department has only gotten stronger. The interaction that you get from your colleagues is so influential in building your work that you cannot underestimate its impact.”

Hansen, too, said his colleagues were essential in guiding his approach to research. “This environment here really is something special,” Hansen said. From his mentors and colleagues in the University’s Department of Economics, he learned that “economics is supposed to do something—it’s supposed to explain the world.”

'A great day for Chicago economics'

Members of the University community crowded into the soaring Rothman Winter Garden of the Charles M. Harper Center on Monday morning to hear from the two winners and their colleagues.

“Today is a great day for Chicago economics,” Prof. John List told the cheering crowd.

At the event, Fama and Hansen’s colleagues praised the far-reaching impact of the two laureates’ research.

Hansen’s “powerful, pioneering” methods for assessing economic models have been adopted by social scientists in many fields, said List, the Homer J. Livingston Professor and chair of Economics. “Whether it is to explore how public policies effect unemployment rates, how networks form, or how environmental regulations influence productivity growth, Lars’ work plays a key role.”

Fama’s early work on efficient markets, which gave rise to the index funds many investors participate in today, not only revolutionized academic finance, but also made “a phenomenal impact on the practical world, and really on people’s lives,” said John Heaton, the Joseph L. Gidwitz Professor of Finance and Deputy Dean for Faculty at Chicago Booth.

Heaton also praised Fama’s commitment to his students, noting that Fama spent his first morning as a Nobel laureate teaching a course on portfolio theory and asset pricing.

When he received the call from the Nobel committee, “I was preparing my class, actually,” Fama said.

For his part, Hansen said he was looking forward to meeting with several graduate students later in the afternoon.

“I’ve been very lucky to have a long list of very good graduate students. I’m very proud of this,” he said. “Most of my best students are happy to tell me where I’m wrong and more than happy to expose the gaps in my understanding. My graduate students over the years—current and former ones—have been some of my best colleagues.”

"I can’t distinguish between students and colleagues,” agreed Fama. Former students become colleagues who “contribute to your work through their work, or through commenting on your work. There’s a continuous interchange.”

Understanding trends in asset markets

The work the Nobel honors had roots in the 1960s, when Fama and his collaborators made pivotal contributions concerning the difficulty of predicting stock prices in the short run.

“These findings not only had a profound impact on subsequent research but also changed market practice,” notes the Nobel announcement for the 2013 prize.

“As a pioneering researcher and teacher, Gene embodies the highest aspirations of Chicago Booth, to create knowledge with enduring impact, and to influence and educate current and future leaders,” said Sunil Kumar, dean of Chicago Booth and the George Pratt Shultz Professor of Operations Management. “We are honored to have him as a member of the Booth community, now in his 50th year with us, and we congratulate him on this well-deserved achievement.”

Hansen’s research examines the connection between the macroeconomy and financial markets. His statistical assessments of economic models “go a long way toward explaining asset prices,” the Nobel announcement stated.

Mario Small, dean of the Social Sciences Division and professor in Sociology, said that Hansen “has proven himself year after year to be a creative econometrician, sophisticated empirical researcher, and broad-minded intellectual. He developed important methods to estimate economic models in conditions where previous models were inadequate to meet the complexity of the real world. His work has furthered our understanding of consumption and asset pricing.”

“This award is recognition that he long-ago joined the ranks of the most important economists in the illustrious history of University of Chicago economics,” Small added.

Eugene F. Fama

Fama joined the University of Chicago faculty in 1963 as he was completing his PhD in economics and finance at what was then called the Graduate School of Business.

His research includes theoretical and empirical work on investments, price formation in capital markets, and corporate finance.

Fama teaches “Theory of Financial Decisions,” a PhD course that many MBA students also take. Some former students, including David Booth, an investment fund manager, have called Fama’s course a life-changing experience. Booth cited Fama as his primary influence and credited Fama with his success in 2008, when Booth gave a $300 million gift to the University.

Fama coined the term “efficient market” and the term gained widespread use following publication of “Efficient Capital Markets: A Review of Theory and Empirical Work” in the Journal of Finance in 1970. The efficient markets hypothesis holds that, as a result of competition, equilibrium prices in financial markets incorporate all relevant information. A famous implication of this hypothesis is that simple strategies cannot beat stock markets, bond markets, and international currency markets.

Fama subsequently developed and tested many propositions about prices in efficient markets, the effect of inflation and other macroeconomic factors on bond prices, and how the structure of corporations affects investment and other decisions. His recent work has shown that prospective stock and bond returns vary through time, and has redefined our understanding of which stocks pay greater returns than others.

In addition to publishing nearly 100 academic research papers on finance, Fama has written two widely used textbooks, The Theory of Finance (with Merton Miller) in 1972, and Foundations of Finance in 1976. His work is among the most cited in all of economics and finance.

Fama received the inaugural Onassis Prize in Finance sponsored by the Onassis Public Benefit Foundation of Greece in April 2009 in recognition of a lifetime contribution to the study of finance by a leading academic, the inaugural Morgan Stanley American Finance Association Award for Excellence in Finance in 2007, and the 2006 Nicholas Molodovsky Award from the CFA Institute, presented for “outstanding contributions to the investment profession of such significance as to change the direction of the profession and raise it to higher standards of accomplishment.”

He was awarded the inaugural Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics in April 2005. The award honors an internationally renowned researcher who has excelled through influential contributions to research in the fields of finance and macroeconomics, and whose work has led to practice and policy-relevant results.

In 2001, Fama became the first person to be elected a fellow of the American Finance Association. He also is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Since 1982, Fama has been a board member of Dimensional Fund Advisers, a fund management company started by David Booth and Rex Sinquefield, two MBA graduates of Chicago Booth. Fama’s research is the basis of most of DFA’s bond products, and his stock market research with Kenneth French is the foundation of the firm’s approach to stock investments.

Included among his honorary degrees is a Doctor of Science Honoris Causa in 2002 from Tufts University where he received his bachelor of arts degree in 1960 before he earned his MBA and PhD at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Fama was born in Boston on Feb. 14, 1939. He and his wife Sally have four children and 10 grandchildren.

Lars Peter Hansen

Hansen is one of the world’s leading experts in economic dynamics. He is internationally recognized for making fundamental advances in the use of statistical methods to assess dynamic economic models and to enhance our understanding of how economic agents cope with changing and risky environments.

Hansen’s research looks at ways to bridge the gap between economic models and economic and financial data. His work has led to improved methods for formulating, analyzing and testing dynamic economic models in environments with uncertainty. He has applied these methods to study the determinants of consumption, savings and security market prices.

In the 1980s, Hansen became the leading contributor to the development and application of rigorous estimation and testing methods for financial data. His 1982 Econometrica paper, “Large Sample Properties of Generalized-Methods of Moments Estimators,” fundamentally altered the way that empirical research is done in finance and macroeconomics.

This new methodology led him, with Ken Singleton, to make one of the pioneering contributions to what became known as the “equity premium puzzle.”

Hansen continues to be a prolific researcher. His recent work focuses on models that incorporate ambiguities, beliefs and skepticism of consumers and investors; specifically, he is exploring how these models can explain economic and financial data to understand the consequences of policy options. He is also principal investigator on a research project that has assembled a group of elite economists to develop macroeconomic models with enhanced linkages to the financial sector. These models will provide more powerful policy tools for measuring and monitoring systemic risks to the economy arising from financial markets.

Since 1981 Hansen has served on the faculty of the University of Chicago’s Department of Economics, where he was the former director of graduate studies and chairman. He serves as research director for UChicago’s Becker Friedman Institute for Research in Economics.

He is the recipient of the 2006 Erwin Plein Nemmers Prize in Economics from Northwestern University. In making the announcement, the selection committee said it was giving recognition “for rigorously relating economic theory to observed macroeconomic and asset market behavior and for innovations in modeling optimal policy under uncertainty.” Hansen also won the 2008 CME Group MSRI Prize and the 2010 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Economics, Finance, and Management.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and a former president of the Econometric Society. He is a former John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and Sloan Foundation Fellow.

Along with fellow Nobel Laureate Thomas Sargent and others, Hansen has recently developed methods for modeling economic decision-making in environments in which uncertainty is hard to quantify. They explore the consequences for models with financial markets and characterize environments in which the beliefs of economic actors are “fragile.”

Currently, Hansen is contributing his expertise on decision-making under uncertainty to a collaborative effort as part of the Center for Robust Decision Making on Climate and Energy Policy (RDCEP) headed by Ian Foster, the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor in Computer Science, to develop dynamic economic models in which economic activity could influence the climate. He is a senior fellow of the University of Chicago’s Computation Institute.

Hansen received a BS in mathematics in 1974 from Utah State University and a PhD in economics in 1978 from the University of Minnesota.

Faculty members honored for excellence in graduate-level teaching

Thu, 25 Jul 2013 10:28 -0500

The UChicago professional schools have announced honors for graduate-level teaching for the 2012–13 school year. Click on the schools below for stories on the award winners.

University of Chicago Booth School of Business awards

European and Asian Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award — Ron Burt, the Hobart W. Williams Professor of Sociology and Strategy

Global Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award — Linda Ginzel, Clinical Professor of Managerial Psychology

Faculty Excellence Award, Evening MBA and Weekend MBA programs — Erik Hurst, the V. Duane Rath Professor of Economics and John E. Jeuck Faculty Fellow

Emory Williams Award for Teaching Excellence — Douglas Skinner, John P. and Lillian A. Gould Professor of Accounting

Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award, Executive MBA Program North America — Kevin Rock, Clinical Professor of Finance

Harris School of Public Policy

Best Teacher in a Non-Core Course — Jens Ludwig, the McCormick Foundation Professor of Social Service Administration, Law and Public Policy

Best Teacher in a Core Course —James Sallee, assistant professor

Law School

Class of 2013 Graduate Students Teaching Award — Saul Levmore, the William B. Graham Distinguished Service Professor of Law

School of Social Service Administration

William Pollack Award for Excellence in Teaching — Alida Bouris, assistant professor

Award for Excellence in Doctoral Student Mentoring — Julia Henly, associate professor

Pritzker School of Medicine and Biological Sciences Division

Distinguished Educator and Mentor Awards — Vineet Arora, associate professor of medicine; Marshall Chin, professor of medicine; Lianne Kurina, assistant professor of Health Studies; Peggy Mason, professor of neurobiology

Lifetime Achievement Award — Javad Hekmat-panah, professor of surgery and neurology

Faculty Physician Peer Role Model Award — Anne Hong, assistant professor of medicine

Doroghazi Outstanding Clinical Teaching Award — Michael Marcangelo, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience

Outstanding Basic Science Teaching Award — Husain Sattar, associate professor of pathology

L.D.H. Wood Pre-Clinical Teaching Awards — James O’Reilly, senior lecturer, Organismal Biology and Anatomy; and Scott Stern, professor of medicine

Hilger Perry Jenkins Award — Adam Mikolajczyk, resident in medicine

Amit Seru honored for research on mortgage-backed securities market

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:08 -0500

Amit Seru, an associate professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has been named a co-recipient of the 2013 AQR Insight Award. It honors his research on how to identify and quantify misreported loans in the $2 trillion market for private mortgage-backed securities.

The award, sponsored by AQR Capital Management, recognizes unpublished research papers that provide the most significant, new practical insights for tax-exempt institutional or taxable investor portfolios.

Seru was honored for his paper “Asset Quality Misrepresentation by Financial Intermediaries: Evidence from the Residential Mortgage-backed Securities Market,” written with Tomasz Piskorski and James Witkin from Columbia Business School, who share the Distinguished Paper Award with Seru.

The distinguished paper designation means the authors received second place and will receive $40,000 of the $100,000 prize, with the remaining funds going to this year’s winner.

The winning research was conducted by Martin Lettau and Michael Weber from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, and Matteo Maggiori at New York University Stern School of Business, for their unpublished research in predicting market returns for currencies and other asset classes.

Bryan Kelly, an assistant professor of finance at Chicago Booth, won first prize in last year’s competition for research conducted jointly with Seth Pruitt, an economist at the Federal Reserve Board.

Though many academic finance papers are written each year, the AQR Insight Award is given to the research that best addresses the real-world challenges investors face in asset allocation, security selection, portfolio implementation, risk management and other areas, the company said.

Cliff Asness, managing principal at AQR, received a Chicago Booth MBA in 1991 and a PhD in 1994.

In their research, Seru, Piskorski and Witkin constructed two measures of misrepresentation of asset quality—misreported occupancy status of borrowers and misreported second liens—by comparing the characteristics of mortgages disclosed to the investors at the time of sale with actual characteristics of these loans at that time that are available in a dataset matched by a credit bureau. About 10 percent of mortgages sold by intermediaries from 2002 to 2007 contained false information, much of which could be traced to financial institutions. Investors then used that false information when pricing the assets.

Seru joined the Booth faculty in 2007 and concentrates his research on issues related to financial intermediation and regulation, interaction of internal organization of firms with financing and investment, and incentive provision in firms.

His papers have been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics and other scholarly publications. They have also been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Financial Times and The Economist.

Seru’s research on the behavior of banks and regulators during the housing crisis won the best paper award at the European Finance Association Conference, the Red Rock Conference, the CAF Research Conference, the NSIM Conference and the Mitsui Research Conference. t also won the biannual Chookaszian Endowed Risk Management Prize at Chicago Booth.

Seru teaches MBA courses in corporate finance.

Veronica Guerrieri named top Italian economist younger than 40

Tue, 21 May 2013 12:53 -0500

Prof. Veronica Guerrieri, who studies labor markets and financial market frictions at Chicago Booth, has received the Carlo Alberto Medal, given every two years to the top Italian economist younger than 40.

The award, which recognizes outstanding research in economics, is given by Collegio Carlo Alberto, a foundation in Torino, Italy dedicated to advancing research and education in the social sciences.

In announcing the award, the foundation highlighted the words of scholars who nominated Guerrieri: “Veronica is a broad-ranging economist who has contributed significantly to our understanding of labor markets both at the micro and at the macro level.” Moreover, “her current research on financial frictions, liquidity traps and flights to quality are major contributions to the literature in the wake of the recent crisis and are impacting policy at top policy institutions.”

Guerrieri’s scholarly writing includes “Fund Managers, Career Concerns and Asset Price Volatility,” with Peter Kondor, published in American Economic Review in 2012, and “Inefficient Unemployment Dynamics under Asymmetric Information,” published in the Journal of Political Economy in 2008.

Guerrieri was named an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow in 2011, and she received the Excellence Award in Global Economic Affairs from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy in 2010. She twice received the Excellence in Refereeing Award from the American Economic Review.

She is associate editor of the American Economic Review and Theoretical Economics, and a faculty research associate in the National Bureau of Economic Research’s program on Economic Fluctuations and Growth.

At Chicago Booth, Guerrieri teaches MBA and PhD courses in macroeconomics.

She joined the Booth faculty in 2006, after receiving a PhD in economics from MIT. Guerrieri received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Bocconi University in Italy, where she was born.

She will be presented with the award at the Collegio Carlo Alberto in the fall, and will deliver the Carlo Alberto Medal Lecture and become an honorary fellow of the Collegio.

Chicago Booth’s Emir Kamenica named Sloan Research Fellow

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 11:14 -0600

Emir Kamenica, associate professor of economics and Robert King Steel Faculty Fellow at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has been chosen as a 2013 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awards fellowships annually in science, mathematics, economics and computer science to early-career scholars of outstanding promise “in recognition of distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field.”

“I felt quite honored to learn that I was selected as a Sloan Research Fellow. The award suggests that my work has at least some relevance for our discipline, which is of course extremely encouraging and motivating,” Kamenica said.

Kamenica’s research focuses on microeconomics, specifically on design of informational environments, behavioral industrial organization and dating and marriage markets. His recent papers include “Bayesian Persuasion,” published in the American Economic Review in 2011 and written with Matthew Gentzkow, the Richard O. Ryan Professor of Economics and Neubauer Family Faculty Fellow at Booth, who in 2009 was a Sloan Research Fellow.

Kamenica is an associate editor of the Journal of the European Economic Association.

UChicago scholars joining Kamenica as Sloan Research Fellows for 2013 include Dorian Abbott, assistant professor, and Jacob Waldbauer, Neubauer Family Assistant Professor, both in Geophysical Sciences;and Wei Wei, assistant professor in Neurobiology. Three Booth professors—Veronica Guerrieri, Jesse Shapiro and Amir Sufi—were named Sloan Research Fellows in 2011.

Kamenica joined the Booth faculty in 2006, after receiving his doctorate in economics from Harvard University. He taught competitive strategy in the fall quarter.

The Sloan Research Fellowship is for two years, and each winner receives $50,000. More information about the award is available at www.sloan.org/sloan-research-fellowships.

Raghuram Rajan wins Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 11:05 -0600

Raghuram Rajan, the Eric J. Gleacher Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has been awarded the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics.

Winners of the Center for Financial Studies’ biennial award are chosen by a jury of financial research and practice experts. Rajan will be presented with the award Sept. 26 in Frankfurt, Germany. The award is presented with Goethe University Frankfurt, and the Deutsche Bank Donation Fund provides the 50,000 euro endowment.

Rajan, the chief economic adviser in India’s Finance Ministry, is the second Chicago Booth professor to receive the Deutsche Bank award. Eugene Fama, the Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, won the inaugural prize in 2005. Other winners include Michael Woodford, a professor of political economy at Columbia University, in 2007; Robert J. Shiller, professor of economics at Yale University and professor of finance at Yale School of Management, in 2009; and Kenneth Rogoff, professor of economics and of Public Policy at Harvard University in Cambridge, in 2011.

“I am honored, of course,” Rajan said. “It is a prize first won by Gene Fama, followed by Shiller, Woodward and Rogoff. These are people I admire greatly, and with any such honor, you have doubts about whether you belong in such an elite group. So it is also a humbling experience.”

The Center for Financial Studies cited Rajan’s original and diverse influence on the field of financial economics.

“Raghuram G. Rajan’s work spans a remarkably broad range of areas in financial economics most important to the development of economies worldwide,” Michael Haliassos, jury chairman and CFS director, wrote in a release. “This includes the impact of financial development on growth, banking and financial crises, as well as corporate finance and governance. His work develops novel empirical and theoretical approaches with significant policy implications.”

Rajan said that with a large number of deserving candidates, it is hard to discern what set him apart. “From the citation, I would guess it is my work on the financial crisis, overlaid on two decades of academic work with a number of co-authors from the school and elsewhere,” he added.

The Center for Financial Studies also cited Rajan’s warning, in a 2005 speech at an annual gathering of economists in Jackson Hole, Wyo., about the risks of financial developments and a looming financial disaster. Rajan told the Wall Street Journal in 2009 that he had started his research for “Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?” intending to show the positives of financial developments, but found the opposite.

“Rajan’s penetrating analysis of the changing growth experience during the postwar era and of the differences in the nature of the crises faced by the United States and by Southern Europe is essential reading for understanding the current policy dilemmas between austerity and growth facing both sides of the Atlantic,” the center wrote.

For more information on the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics, visit www.db-prize.com.

UChicago faculty members honored for graduate-level teaching in the professional schools

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 14:48 -0500

University of Chicago Booth School of Business awards

Sanjay Dhar, the James H. Lorie Professor of Marketing, Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award, Executive MBA Program North America

Haresh Sapra, professor of accounting, Emory Williams Award for Teaching Excellence

Craig Wortmann, clinical professor of entrepreneurship, Faculty Excellence Award, Evening MBA and Weekend MBA programs

Matthew Bothner, visiting professor, European and Asian Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award

Irving B. Harris School of Public Policy Studies

Jim Sallee, assistant professor, Best Teacher in a Core Course

Paula Worthington, Senior Lecturer, Best Teacher in a Non-Core Course

Law School awards — Class of 2012 Graduate Students Awards

Saul Levmore, the William B. Graham Distinguished Service Professor of Law, Teaching Award

Ann Perry, Dean of Admissions for the Law School, Class Award

Pritzker School of Medicine awards

Jerome Klafta, professor of anesthesia and critical care, Distinguished Educator and Mentor Award

Michael LaBarbara, professor in organismal biology and anatomy, Distinguished Educator and Mentor Award

Joel Schwab, associate professor in pediatrics, Doroghazi Outstanding Clinical Teaching Award, Faculty Physician Peer Role Model Award, Faculty Marshal for the Divisional Hooding Ceremony

Husain Sattar, assistant professor in pathology, Outstanding Basic Science Teaching Award

Poj Lysouvakon, assistant professor in pediatrics, Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine Award

Jason Poston, assistant professor in pulmonary and critical care, and Peggy Mason, professor in neurobiology, L.D.H. Wood Pre-Clinical Teaching Awards

Jeremy Estrada, resident in medicine, Hilger Perry Jenkins Award

Three Booth faculty members honored by students with teaching awards

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 14:08 -0500

University of Chicago Booth School of Business professors Sanjay Dhar, Haresh Sapra and Craig Wortmann have been recognized by students for their work in the classroom during the 2011-12 academic year.

Dhar, the James H. Lorie Professor of Marketing, received the Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award from students in the Executive MBA Program, North America.

Sapra, professor of accounting, was selected by students in all of Chicago Booth’s programs as this year’s recipient of the Emory Williams Award for Teaching Excellence.

Craig Wortmann, clinical professor of entrepreneurship, received the Faculty Excellence Award from students in the Evening MBA and Weekend MBA Programs.

Students in the Executive MBA Program at Booth’s campuses in London and Singapore selected Matthew Bothner, a visiting faculty member, as the recipient of the European and Asian Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award.

“It is a privilege to teach such an exclusive, engaged group of students,” said Dhar, who has been a Chicago Booth faculty member for 19 years. “You have to be on your best game to teach Booth Executive MBA students and winning this award is a great honor,” Dhar said.

For Sapra, this is a repeat, as he has received the Emory Williams Award before. “It is very gratifying to be recognized for something that I love to do,” he said. His MBA courses, which cover mergers and acquisitions and corporate restructuring, are designed to be challenging and practical, he said.

Wortmann says the most rewarding aspect of teaching at Booth is hearing from students “that what we do in the classroom is sticking.”

Chicago Harris students vote for Sallee and Worthington to receive teaching awards

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 13:20 -0500

Faculty members Jim Sallee and Paula Worthington have won the 2012 Harris School teaching awards. Sallee was named Best Teacher in a Core Course, and Worthington was named Best Teacher in a Non-Core Course. Each year, students select two professors to honor and recognize for their excellence and achievement in the classroom.

“I’d like to emphasize how important these awards are to the School,” said Colm O’Muircheartaigh, dean of the Harris School, at a ceremony announcing the winners of the 2012 teaching awards. “The most prestigious award we can have is one that is presented by our students. It’s truly an honor to be selected.”

Worthington, who has won the award for best Non-Core Course teaching several years in a row, received her PhD in economics from Northwestern University and began her career working for the Federal Reserve Banks in New York and Chicago, where she did policy writing, briefings and presentations. Her published critical articles have examined productivity in the manufacturing sector, lending performance by small banks and comparisons of tax burdens by state.

“In 2012, I worked with groups across a wide variety of subject areas—medical care in the fall; school lunch programs and nutrition, health and decision-making in the winter and spring terms; and social (impact) investing in the spring,” said Worthington.

“My Harris students are hard-working and creative young people, and it is a privilege to work with them on these important and interesting policy issues in a ‘workshop’ type of setting as they develop the analytical tools and policy ‘chops’ for the jobs they will take after graduation.“

Sallee is an assistant professor with the Harris School who researches topics in public economics with an emphasis on taxation and environmental policy. His current research is focused on evaluating how firms and consumers react to public policies aimed at improving the fuel economy of new vehicles.

Sallee also is a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and in 2010, he was a visiting fellow at the University of California Energy Institute. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Michigan.

“Teaching is a lot of work, but it is also very rewarding when the students are like ours—intelligent, engaged and willing to work hard,” said Sallee.

“I love teaching Harris students because they want to learn for the right reasons. This makes teaching fun, and it also makes this recognition especially meaningful because I know that they would only nominate someone if they felt that person had taught them something valuable. There are many great teachers at Harris, and thus it is a real honor to have been recognized like this.”

Christian Leuz awarded Humboldt Research Award

Tue, 29 May 2012 17:02 -0500

Christian Leuz, the Joseph Sondheimer Professor of International Economics, Finance and Accounting at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has been awarded a Humboldt Research Award.

The prestigious award is given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation in Germany “in recognition of a researcher’s entire achievements to date.” According to the foundation, the award honors “academics whose fundamental discoveries, new theories or insights have had a significant impact on their own field of specialization and beyond, and who are expected to continue producing cutting-edge achievements in the future.”

Leuz has done extensive research on the role of corporate disclosures, accounting transparency and disclosure regulation in capital markets and in corporate financing. He has contributed studies to the link between financial disclosure and firms’ cost of capital, which is considered one of the most fundamental links in accounting and financial economics.

His study on the United States over-the-counter market, co-authored with Brian Bushee, was one of the first to provide evidence on the existence of positive externalities from disclosure regulation, which are commonly seen as a justification for regulation. In one of his latest studies, he and his co-authors look at the economic consequences of insider trading and transparency regulation for securities markets in the European Union.

Leuz’s research has been published in top academic journals including the Journal of Accounting Research, the Journal of Accounting and Economics, the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial Economics. He is an editor of the Journal of Accounting Research and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the Center for Financial Studies and the European Corporate Governance Institute.

Leuz was one of two economists who were asked by the Financial Accounting Standards Board to produce an independent research report on the pros and cons of adopting and requiring International Financial Reporting Standards in the U.S.

At Booth he teaches an MBA course in financial statement analysis and corporate valuation, and a PhD course on empirical accounting research. He is also co-director of Booth’s Initiative on Global Markets.

The Humboldt Award will allow Leuz to spend part of the 2012-13 academic year at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, where he will continue his research and help in its efforts to build an empirical accounting and finance group.

Last year Leuz received the 2011 American Accounting Association/Deloitte Wildman Medal for his research on international accounting.

He holds a doctorate and a postdoctorate degree from Goethe University in Frankfurt and joined the Booth faculty in 2006.

Bryan Kelly wins AQR Insight Award for research predicting market returns

Tue, 29 May 2012 15:58 -0500

Bryan Kelly, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has won the inaugural AQR Insight Award. The award, sponsored by AQR Capital Management, recognizes an unpublished research paper that provides the most significant, new practical insights for tax-exempt institutional or taxable investor portfolios.

Kelly was honored for his paper “Market Expectations in the Cross Section of Present Values,” which predicts market returns more accurately over one-month and one-year time horizons. The research was written with Seth Pruitt, an economist at the Federal Reserve Board.

Cliff Asness, managing principal at AQR, and a Chicago Booth MBA (1991) and PhD (1994), said: “We created this award both to give back to the academic community, and to make sure we stay absolutely current with the latest and greatest research. Bryan’s work easily passes that last test. It is a novel methodology that has the potential to improve our ability to, among other things, make market forecasts.”

Kelly’s and Pruitt’s research uses disaggregated valuation ratios to predict market returns more accurately. “While aggregate measures such as the market’s overall book-to-market ratio can contain predictive information, we find significantly more predictability when using price ratios of individual stocks,” Kelly said. Their paper was chosen by AQR as the best of several hundred submissions from 24 countries.

Kelly joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 2010 and concentrates his research on theoretical and empirical asset pricing, and financial econometrics.

He is associate editor of the Journal of Financial Econometrics and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His recent research includes “Too-Systemic-To-Fail: What Option Markets Imply About Sector-Wide Government Guarantees” (with H. Lustig and S. Van Nieuwerburgh), which was awarded the 2012 JP Morgan Award for Best Paper on Financial Institutions and Markets by the Western Finance Association.

Earlier this academic year Kelly taught an MBA course in investments.

Before receiving a PhD from the Stern School of Business at New York University, Kelly worked at Morgan Stanley in the investment banking division and at UBS in the sales and trading division.

Four UChicago scholars receive Guggenheim fellowships

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:52 -0500

Four UChicago scholars—Alison Bechdel, John H. Cochrane, Adrian Johns, and Don Kulick—have been named 2012 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellows. They are among 181 diverse scholars, artists and scientists selected this year in the 88th annual competition for the United States and Canada.

Chosen from a group of almost 3,000 candidates, the recipients have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts.

Cochrane, the AQR Capital Management Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Johns, the Allan Grant Maclear Professor in History, Kulick, professor of anthropology in Comparative Human Development, and Bechdel, a renowned cartoonist and 2011-2012 Mellon Residential Fellow for Arts and Practice at the Richard and Mary L. Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, are part of the group that Guggenheim Foundation president Edward Hirsch calls "the best of the best."

Alison Bechdel

Acclaimed cartoonist Alison Bechdel will use her Guggenheim Fellowship to complete a third graphic memoir.

She is the author of two other memoirs, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic and the forthcoming Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama. Fun Home, an exploration of the death of Bechdel’s father, was described as “a pioneering work” by the New York Times Book Review and named the Best Book of 2006 by Time magazine.

Bechdel currently co-teaches a course on comics and autobiography with Hillary Chute, the Neubauer Family Assistant Professor of English Language and Literature.

As part of the fellowship, Chute and Bechdel have organized an upcoming conference, “Comics: Philosophy and Practice,” that will bring together 17 world-renowned cartoonists for three days of public lectures and conversation.

Bechdel created the cult comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, which ran from 1983 to 2008. Her comics have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, McSweeney’s, Slate, and the New York Times Book Review. Bechdel edited Best American Comics 2011.

John Cochrane

John Cochrane focuses on macroeconomics, monetary economics and several areas of finance in his research. His recent finance publications include the book Asset Pricing as well as journal articles on dynamics in stock and bond markets, the volatility of exchange rates and the term structure of interest rates. He also has researched and written on the returns to venture capital, liquidity premiums in stock prices, the relation between stock prices and business cycles, and option pricing when investors can’t perfectly hedge.

Cochrane’s monetary economics publications include articles on the relationship between deficits and inflation, the effects of monetary policy, and on the fiscal theory of the price level. Cochrane will use his Guggenheim Fellowship to further his research on the fiscal theory.

Cochrane is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and past director of its asset-pricing program. He is an adjunct scholar of the CATO institute, past president and a fellow of the American Finance Association, and a fellow of the Econometric Society.

Cochrane has been an editor of the Journal of Political Economy, and associate editor of several journals, including the Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Business, and Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. His recent awards include the TIAA-CREF Institute Paul A. Samuelson Award for his book Asset Pricing, the Chookazian Endowed Risk Management Prize, and the Faculty Excellence Award for M.B.A. teaching.

He currently teaches an M.B.A. course in advanced investments and several Ph.D. courses in asset pricing and monetary economics. Cochrane joined the Chicago Booth faculty in 1994 after spending nine years on the faculty of UChicago’s Department of Economics.

He earned his Ph.D. in economics at the University of California, Berkeley.

Adrian Johns

Adrian Johns, a specialist on intellectual property, will study the intellectual property defense industry with his Guggenheim Fellowship.

An expert on British history and the history of the book and other media, Johns chairs the Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science.

He is the author of Death of a Pirate: British Radio and the Making of the Information Age (2010), Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates (2009), and The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making (1998).

The Nature of the Book won the Leo Gershoy Award of the American Historical Association, the John Ben Snow Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies, the Louis Gottschalk Prize of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, and the SHARP Prize for the best work on the history of authorship, reading and publishing.

Johns also has published widely in the history of science. He has published papers on the ideal of scientific collaboration in the 17th and 18th centuries, the history of science and the history of the book.

Prior to his appointment at UChicago in 2001, he taught at the California Institute of Technology; the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Kent.

Johns received a Ph.D. in 1992 from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Don Kulick

Don Kulick, a linguistic anthropologist, will use the Guggenheim Fellowship to work on a book manuscript titled, The End: How a Language Dies.

Kulick spent most of 2009 in a small Papua New Guinean village called Gapun. The language spoken in Gapun is a linguistic isolate that is dying, and currently, only about 45 people fluently speak it. Kulick documented the cultural underpinnings of this language shift in his 1992 book Language Shift and Cultural Reproduction: Socialization, Self, and Syncretism in a Papua New Guinean Village. Last year, he completed the first and only linguistic documentation of the language, Tayap Mer: Grammar and Dictionary of a Papuan Language Isolate.

In addition to his work in Gapun, Kulick has conducted anthropological fieldwork in Brazil, Italy, Sweden and Denmark. He publishes in both English and Swedish, addressing such topics as the language socialization of children, the anthropology of literacy, indigenous forms of Christianity, reflexive epistemology, prostitution, queer theory, transgenderism, language and sexuality, animal studies, disability, and the politics and representation of fat.

His books include Travesti: Sex, Gender and Culture among Brazilian Transgendered Prostitutes, (1998), Language and Sexuality (with Deborah Cameron, 2003), Fat: the Anthropology of an Obsession (co-edited with Anne Meneley, 2005), Queersverige [Queer Sweden, 2005] and Taboo: Sex, Identity, and Erotic Subjectivity in Anthropological Fieldwork, (co-edited with Margaret Willson, 1995)

Prior to his 2008 UChicago faculty appointment, he held academic positions at the Australian National University, Linköping University, the University of Manchester and Stockholm University. Previously, Kulick was a professor of anthropology and director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University.

Kulick received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Stockholm University in 1990.