Sam Adams joined the Ph.D. program at the University of Tennessee in the fall of 2019. He received his BSBA in finance from the University of Arkansas and his MS in quantitative financial economics from Oklahoma State University. Sam worked as a fixed income analyst at Oaklawn Investments between his undergraduate and graduate degrees. His research interests include market microstructure and banking.

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Dipesh Bhattarai joined the UT Department of Finance Ph.D. program in August 2019. He received a Master’s of Business Administration at Mississippi State University, where he worked as a graduate teaching assistant. Dipesh earned a Bachelor’s of Business Administration with specialization in banking and finance from Pokhara University, Nepal. His research interest includes banking, international finance, and corporate finance.

Tim Dong joined the UT Department of Finance Ph.D. program in August 2021. He received his master’s degree in financial mathematics from Rochester Institute of Technology. Outside of academia, he has worked as a freelance consultant for a quant hedge fund. His research interests include asset pricing, market microstructure and financial technology.

Connor Kasten joined the University of Tennessee’s Department of Finance Ph.D. program in August 2018. He earned his Bachelor of Business Administration in both economics and finance from Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, GA. Immediately prior to joining the doctoral program, he worked as a financial advisor and served clients by assisting them in retirement, education, estate, and insurance planning. His research interests include investments, financial intermediation, retirement and employee benefits, retail investors, and behavioral finance. His research has been accepted at the Eastern Finance Association (EFA) and Financial Management Association (FMA) conferences, and he received an EFA Distinguished Student Paper Award for his work on retirement provider relationships in the corporate loan market.

Zhengzhuo (Zyaire) Li joined the finance Ph.D. program at the University of Tennessee in August 2021. He received a master’s degree in business analytics from Wake Forest University, where he worked as a research assistant. Zhengzhuo also earned his bachelor’s degree in management from Tulane University. His research interests include corporate finance, corporate governance and international finance.

Banks Osborne joined the Finance Ph.D. program at the University of Tennessee in August 2020. Prior to joining the department, he worked as a data science graduate research assistant and an instructor of statistics while earning his Master of Science in Mathematics at the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW). He also earned his Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from UNCW. Outside of academia, he has worked as a statistical consultant. His research interests include asset pricing, market microstructure, and international finance.

Jack Wang entered the finance doctoral program in the Fall of 2017. He received an undergraduate finance degree from Shaanxi Normal University in Xi’an, China. Guanhuan then continued his education at the Southern Methodist University. He earned the Master’s of Science in Finance while serving as a research assistant.

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Alex Zhang joined the UT Department of Finance PhD program in August 2018. She received her BBM in international business from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, and her MS in finance from Johns Hopkins University, Washington D.C.