BBA ’17

“I received invaluable guidance and support from the Finance faculty at the Fox School. As a result, I stood out from the other candidates in the job market, and am excited to begin my career as an analyst with PNC Wealth Management.”

BBA ’17

“The Fox School provides students with access to cutting-edge financial software used in the industry. I graduated knowing how to navigate financial software like Bloomberg and Factset, which set me apart in a crowded job market. After I graduated, I got a job in the Group Insurance Division at Prudential Financial, thanks to Fox.”

I’ve pursued two unique and successful careers during my professional work life.  In my first career, after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh with an engineering degree, I joined Schlumberger Limited and worked in oil and gold exploration for nearly 11-years.  My initial positions included field-engineering roles on offshore oil rigs. After four years as an engineer, Schlumberger sponsored my MBA at the University of Pittsburgh.  The MBA degree propelled me into international management positions with the company where I served as country manager in South Africa and Bolivia, corporate consultancy roles in France, and business development in The Netherlands and Germany. I held a life-long desire to pursue an academic career in teaching and research. Thus, after 11-years in growing corporate roles, I started my Ph.D. in Finance at Texas A&M University in 1992 and earned my doctorate in late 1996.

I maintain a strong interest and commitment to students through my teaching and administrative efforts. From a teaching perspective, I’ve had substantial experience working with undergraduate and graduate students. My portfolio of courses spans introductory finance courses as well as more advanced courses including Corporate Governance, International Finance, Corporate Valuation and Financial Strategy.  My teaching ratings consistently place me in the top 10% of all instructors in my school. On a five-point scale, my scores routinely fall in the 4.7 range (or better) for the question “Overall, instructor is”. Finally, I have received numerous Outstanding Teacher Awards at American University and Temple University. Since entering academia, I have strived to establish an outstanding and continuing record of research and teaching. My research agenda focuses broadly on corporate finance with a particular emphasis on corporate governance. Over the past several years, my work has appeared in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Accounting and Economics, and Administrative Science Quarterly.

Cindy Axelrod recently joined the Fox School of Business as an Assistant Professor in the Finance Department. Prior to joining Fox, Ms. Axelrod was a Senior Securities Analyst and Investment Professional with over 25 years experience in equity analysis and portfolio management. She has a successful track record of investing client assets utilizing value, growth, and GARP investment disciplines across all market capitalizations.

Ms. Axelrod is accomplished in equity analysis, with a sharp focus on the ability to assess important and timely business trends as they relate to corporate balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements. Cindy is a results oriented professional who has consistently demonstrated an expertise in identifying critical business trends and catalysts and their impact on stock performance.

Most recently, Ms. Axelrod was employed by Glenmede Trust Company as a Vice President, and covered the healthcare and consumer staples sectors of the S&P 500. During her 10-year tenure, she outperformed the S&P 500, developed diversification strategies for clients with concentrated investment positions, evaluated private investment opportunities that enabled effective and profitable analysis, and participated in new business development.

She holds an M.B.A. and B.S. from Drexel University, specializing in Investment Management and Finance. Ms. Axelrod earned the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst Designation in June, 2000.

Dr. Gurdip S. Bakshi is the Marvin Wachman Professor of Finance. He joins the Fox School from the University of Maryland, where he was the Dean’s Professor of Finance at the Smith School of Business.

Bakshi’s research interests include stock valuation, option valuation, term structure of interest rates, asset pricing, capital, commodity, and currency markets, crashes, and international finance. His recent work focuses on studying the valuation structures of technology stocks, risk premiums, incomplete markets, opaqueness of hedge fund investments, recovery theorem, and probability of stock market crashes.

His works have been published in the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Management Science, and Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, among others. He serves co-editor for the Review of Derivatives Research, and editorial board roles with the Review of Financial Studies, the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and the Journal of Financial Econometrics, Journal of Banking and Finance, among others.

Bakshi earned his PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, where he also received Master of Science degrees in Finance and Economics. He earned a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical Engineering from India’s Punjab Engineering College.

Steve Casper is a professor of finance in Temple University’s Fox School of Business, teaching both undergraduate and graduate students. He is also the Managing Director of the Fox Executive Doctorate in Business Administration program.

Steve has more than 20 years of experience in marketing and management in the information technology industry. He has served as IBM’s senior executive in West Virginia and as a business unit executive for the eastern United States. He also directed IBM’s distribution channels marketing on a global basis. Steve has earned numerous leadership, management, and performance awards from IBM. Currently, Steve serves as general partner in New Hope Property & Management, which develops, owns and manages commercial real estate in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania.

Steve presently serves as the Vice President of the Board of Trustees for KIPP Philadelphia Charter Schools, and is a past board member of the West Virginia Business Roundtable and the Amateur Sports Hall of Fame. As a member of Big Brothers/Big Sisters, he was honored as the South Philadelphia Big Brother of the Year. He holds a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and an MBA from Villanova University. He received his PhD, with a specialization in international business and finance, from Temple University.

Steve is married and has three children. Kristen teaches high school in north Philadelphia as part of the Teach for America program, David is in medical school at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and Tanya is in 10th grade at The Hill School. Steve’s interests include water sports, sailing, reading, travel, and working to improve K-12 education in Philadelphia.

Dr. Jongmoo Jay Choi is Laura H. Carnell Professor of Finance and International Business at Temple University. He is the Ph.D. Director in International Business, a former Chair of Finance Department, and a member of the University International Advisory Council. He teaches international finance and corporate finance. He is a recipient of the Musser Award for Excellence in Leadership, and has been inducted to the Research Roundtable. Previously, he was on the faculty of Columbia Business School, an international economist at J.P. Morgan Chase, and a visiting faculty at KAIST, Yonsei, IUJ, Rikkyo, U. Sydney, Wharton, and others around the world. As an author of over hundred articles, books and presentations, he is an internationally renowned scholar in international financial management, global corporate governance and finance, corporate risk and capital markets, and Asian business and multinational firms. He is the founding editor of International Finance Review, and an editor of Journal of Economics and Business, and on several editorial boards. He is Eminent Scholar and former President of Korea-America Finance Association, and a board member at Philip Jaisohn Memorial Foundation; has been a consultant to Bank of Korea, City of New York, Campbell Soup, Yamaichi Securities, and others. He has a BBA from Seoul National University and an MBA and a Ph.D. from New York University. His biography is listed in Marquis Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in Finance and Industry, and others.

Dr. Elyas Elyasiani joined Temple in 1980. His main area of expertise is banking and financial institutions. Dr. Elyasiani has done research in bank and insurance company stock return modeling, risk exposure, efficiency, cross-industry and international spillover of shocks, institutional, foreign and minority ownership effects and fixed income modeling as well as quantitative finance and monetary economics.

His publications have appeared in the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Financial Markets, Journal of Risk and Insurance, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Journal of Financial Research, Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, and Journal of Financial Services Research. Dr. Elyasiani has taught at Michigan State University, Temple University, Hebrew University and Bar Ilan University in Israel at the PhD, MBA, and undergraduate levels. He is also a fellow at the Wharton Financial Institution Center and a visiting scholar and Dean’s fellow at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel. He serves as an editor of the Journal of Economics and Business.

Dr. Xiaohui Gao Bakshi is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Finance.

Bakshi’s research explores empirical corporate finance; theoretical and empirical asset pricing; behavioral finance; entrepreneurship; and international finance. She has published in the Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Management Science.

She won the 2013 Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis William F. Sharpe Award, and first prize of the 2010 Journal of Financial Economics Jensen Prizes for Corporate Finance and Organizations.

Bakshi earned her PhD in Finance from the University of Florida, where she also attained a Master of Science in Mathematics. She received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Fudan University.

Dr. Cheng (Jason) Jiang is an assistant professor of instruction in finance, the academic director of Doctor of Science in Global Finance and the director of quantitative software education of Fox School of Business at Temple University.

Dr. Jiang has a demonstrated record of success as an instructor at Temple University. He has received the Faculty of the Year award for the past four consecutive years for the master program in finance. He is also the recipient of four Fox Crystal Apple Awards and is named as Dean’s Teaching Fellow.

Dr. Jiang innovatively founded and taught the school-wide online quantitative software education program. He developed several online courses to teach students cutting-edge software such as SAS, Stata, R, and etc.

Dr. Jiang’s research interest lies in the fields of financial econometrics, corporate finance, and real estate. He has published papers in Journal of Real Estate Research, Quarterly Journal of Finance and Asian Economic and Financial Review.

Prior to joining Temple University, his work experience includes internships at Morgan Stanley, Gurtin Fixed Income Management, and UBS. Dr. Jiang earned his Ph.D. degree in Economics from University of California, Riverside.

Satyajit Karnik is an assistant professor of finance at the Fox School of Business. His teaching specialty lies in the fields of Derivatives and Risk Management. At the Fox School he has received the Faculty of the Year awards for the past three consecutive years in the MS programs in Finance.

Prior to joining Temple, he was Vice President of Research at the Global Association of Risk Professionals. He has taught at the Zicklin School of Business at CUNY and at the Gabelli School of Management at Fordham University. At Zicklin he was nominated for a distinguished teaching award. Dr. Karnik has held several positions in the finance industry, primarily in the field of fixed income. He managed the analytics at Option One Mortgage Corp. in California and was responsible for developing default and prepayment models among other statistical analysis. While in California he taught finance at the Paul Merage School of Business at University of California, Irvine and at the Graziado School of Business at Pepperdine University.

Dr. Karnik earned his Master’s degree in mathematics from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology in India. He served as a research analyst at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai. Dr. Karnik earned both a Masters degree in Applied Economics and a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Michigan in 2000.

Yuanzhi Li is an assistant professor in Finance at Fox School of Business. Professor Li teaches courses in corporate finance and investment. She has been with Temple since 2009. Her primary research areas include corporate governance, investment, and Bankruptcy. Professor Li has been published in major journals including Journal of Financial Economics and Journal of Financial Markets. Professor Li received her Doctor of Philosophy in Finance from New York University.

Dr. Connie X. Mao is an Associate Professor of Finance and Joseph E. Boettner Senior Research Fellow at Temple University Fox School of Business. She holds a doctorate in Finance from The Johnson School of Management at Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), and a doctorate in Biomedical Science from Cornell University Medical School (New York, NY). Her research expertise is corporate finance. Her primary research interest is in the areas of debt contracting, agency conflicts, and corporate innovation.

Specifically, Dr. Mao’s research examines the effect of agency conflicts on the financing decisions of firms and debt contracting, and how the resolution of these conflicts influences firm performance, corporate innovation, and the efficiency of security markets. She has published papers in Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, The Accounting Review, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Corporate Finance, etc. She has been named to the Fox School Dean’s Research Honor Roll, a receipt the Andrisani-Frank Undergraduate Teaching Award and the FMA Outstanding Finance Professor Award.

Dr. Lalitha Naveen is Associate Professor of Finance at Temple University. She has degrees in Chemical Engineering and MBA, and a PhD in Finance from Arizona State University. Her field of expertise is empirical corporate finance. Her primary research focus is in the areas of corporate board structure and executive compensation.

Specifically, Dr. Naveen’s research investigates the factors that determine the particular corporate governance mechanisms adopted by firms and how these mechanisms, in turn, affect firm policies and firm value. Her research papers have received Best Paper Awards and have been published in top finance and accounting journals including Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Journal of Accounting and Economics. She has taught in the undergraduate, MBA, and doctoral programs and has received the Outstanding Faculty of the Year Award as well as the Temple University Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award in recognition of her teaching excellence. She has previously taught at Purdue University and Georgia State University. She has presented or discussed papers at various conferences and academic venues including the American Finance Association, the Western Finance Association, New York University, Columbia University, and the S.E.C. Before doing her PhD, Dr. Naveen worked for four years in the financial services industry primarily in credit analysis and equity analysis.

Dr. Bora Ozkan is an assistant professor of finance at Temple University’s Fox School of Business, where he also serves as academic director of the school’s Online MBA and Online BBA programs. He joined the Fox School in 2014 from Tulane University, where he served as an adjunct lecturer of Economics, and Southeastern Louisiana University, where he functioned as an adjunct lecturer of Accounting and Finance.

Ozkan’s research interests are corporate finance, emerging markets real estate, and business education. His work has earned publication in journals like the International Journal of Economics and Finance, the International Journal of Business and Society, Management Research Review, and the Journal of Education for Business.

Ozkan has taught courses like Financial Modeling and Applied Corporate finance at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, where he implemented latest experiential learning tools into his curriculum. He has been a frequent speaker at educational conferences like Bloomberg for Education and Equity Markets Seminar.

Professionally, Ozkan worked as the director of international marketing at Alexander & Hamilton, Inc., in New Orleans, where he oversaw the international marketing and credit reports departments, while also managing international legal cases and expansion strategy. He completed his bachelor’s degree studies in Science and Economics at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey, and he obtained his master’s degrees in Financial Economics and Business Administration from the University of New Orleans, where he also earned his PhD in Financial Economics on a Dean’s Scholarship.

Dr. Yue Qiu joins the Fox School on a tenure-track appointment within the Department of Finance, upon the completion of his doctoral studies at the University of Minnesota.

While pursuing his doctoral degree, Qiu led undergraduate courses in finance, and served as a teaching assistant for MBA and undergraduate-level courses at Minnesota.

His research interests include labor economics, capital structure, corporate governance, and empirical corporate finance. He received the Best Finance PhD Award at the 2016 Washington University of St. Louis Conference on Corporate Finance and Cubist Systematic Strategies Ph.D. Candidate Award for Outstanding Research at the 2017 Western Finance Association (WFA) Conference.

Qiu earned a PhD in Finance from the University of Minnesota, and a Master of Science degree in Economics from Arizona State University. He also studied at Renmin University of China, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Finance and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics.

Bob Rajewski is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Finance. Additionally, he serves as Assistant Coordinator for the Fox School’s Real Estate Management Programs.

Rajewski is a seasoned real estate professional with range, exhibited by broad and extensive experience in asset management (directing property, construction and leasing teams), and project financing in both commercial real estate and multi-family. He has worked as an appraiser, lender, asset manager and CFO. His strengths include the ability to quickly identify issues, dissect those issues into parts, and resolve those issues by use of critical reasoning.

Rajewski attained a Master of Science in Real Estate Finance & Development from The Johns Hopkins University. He also received a Bachelor of Science in Finance from the University of Baltimore.

Dr. Samuel Rosen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Finance. He received his PhD in finance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BA in economics from Cornell University. Prior to his PhD program, he worked in the Financial Stability division at the Federal Reserve Board.

Rosen’s research focuses on the intersection between macroeconomics and finance. You can read more about his research and find links to his papers on his website.

Jonathan A. Scott, Ph.D. is a professor of finance at the Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He currently serves as the academic director of the Fox Honors program, undergraduate program director for the Finance Department, and the managing director of the Fox School’s William C. Dunkelberg Owl Fund.

Dr. Scott also serves as an independent director and chair of the audit committee of the Office of Finance of the Federal Home Loan Bank System and is an adjunct scholar with the National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation. His research focuses on small business access to credit markets, with publications in the Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Money Credit and Banking, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Financial Research, Journal of Small Business Management, Journal of Business Venturing, and Financial Review.

Dr. Scott teaches in the undergraduate, MBA and EMBA programs in Philadelphia and Tokyo. He has received numerous teaching awards at the Fox School and Temple, most recently the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award in April, 2008 and the Temple Great Teacher Award in April, 2010.

Prior to joining Temple, Dr. Scott was a senior financial executive at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas during the thrift crisis. He received his B.A. in economics from the University of Cincinnati (1972) and Ph.D. in economics from Purdue University (1980).

Amir Shoham (PhD) holds degrees in Economics and Business Administration from Ben-Gurion University. He is currently on the faculty of the finance department at the FOX School of Business Temple University.

Dr. Shoham taught academic courses in economics and finance in seven countries including China, France, and Georgia. In previous years he was on the Board of Directors of two public firms. He has published articles in Journal of International business studies, Human Resource Management, Applied Economic Letters, Journal of Socio-Economics, and others.

Dr. Ofra Bazel-Shoham is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Finance and the Academic Director of Part-Time MBA Conshohocken
 
Her research explores the impact of gender on businesses risky activities such as capital structure, M&A, and R&D. She brings a wealth of professional experience in management and finance. She was a sales and contract manager at Israel Aerospace Industries and a director of operations and finance at a successful Israeli Strat-Up company.
 
Ofra earned her Executive Doctorate in Business Administration from the Fox School of Business, where she also attained a Master of Science in Finance. She received a LL.M. in Commercial Law from Israel’s Bar Ilan University and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

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

Dr. Tang joins the Fox School of business as a research assistant professor in Finance, after serving as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Finance at Clemson University. She has also been a visiting Assistant Professor of Finance at University of Georgia and at Southern Methodist University prior to joining Fox.

Dr. Tang’s research primarily focuses on empirical corporate finance and corporate governance. Her work has been published at major journals such as Journal of Accounting and Economics and International Review of Finance, and has been featured in the business press, including Wall Street Journal and the Economist. She was also the award recipient for the “Best Paper in Corporate Finance” in 2013 EFA Conference.

Her teaching interests include corporate finance, Investment, Derivatives, and international finance. She was awarded as “Learning Leader” for outstanding teaching and was recipient of University “HOPE” Award for Professors of Excellence.

Dr. Tang earned her PhD in Finance from Michigan State University. She also received a Master degree in Economics from Florida State University, and a Bachelor degree in Business Administration and Computer Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Dr. Justin Vitanza joins the Fox School on a non-tenure-track appointment within the Department of Finance.

Prior to his arrival, he served two years as a financial economist with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Vitanza’s research work exploring the rise-and-fall behavior of the Mexican peso against that of the U.S. dollar has been published by the Journal of International Money and Finance. His wider research interests include banking, asset pricing, and systemic risk.

Vitanza earned his PhD in Finance and a Master of Science degree in Business Analytics from the University of Rochester. He also received Bachelor of Arts degrees in Economics and Mathematics from Cornell University.

David J. Wilk is an Assistant Professor of Practice in the Department of Finance. He also serves as the coordinator of the Fox School’s Real Estate Management programs.

Wilk has more than three decades of experience in academia and the real estate industry including valuation, asset optimization, urban redevelopment, place-making, market research, and strategic planning. He joined the Fox School from Colliers International, where he was a managing director in the Washington, D.C., office.

Wilk had been an adjunct faculty member at The Johns Hopkins University since 2016, and at the University of Delaware from 1989 to 2012.

He earned his Master of Science in Real Estate & Infrastructure from The Johns Hopkins University. He received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from the University of Delaware.

Rudy Yaksick joins the Fox School on a non-tenure-track appointment within the Department of Finance.

An educator and financial economist, Yaksick brings more than 30 years of experience in the fields of investment banking, entrepreneurial finance, and investment management (alternative assets). His consulting accomplishments include the design of a $500 million infrastructure fund targeting South Asia (Asian Development Bank); small-scale hydropower fund (Nepal-Clean Energy Development Bank); and a fund of venture capital funds (Saudi Arabian Ministry of Commerce & Industry).

He previously taught MBA-level finance and economics courses at Clark University and Boston University. His international assignments include Gulf University for Science and Technology (Kuwait), King Saud University (Saudi Arabia), and most recently, Wenzhou-Kean University (China).

Yaksick has a Master of Arts degree and has completed all his coursework and exams but for his dissertation in Regional Science from the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds a Master of Arts degree in Regional Economics from Boston College and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Pittsburgh.