Our people
Our team of dedicated researchers and educators is committed to advancing knowledge and understanding in social and sustainable finance, commodity and financial markets, and empirical finance. At the ACFR, collaboration is key to producing impactful research. Contact us to discuss opportunities to advance knowledge in finance and related fields.
Dr Dodd holds a PhD degree from Durham University, United Kingdom. Her expertise is in the area of international finance and empirical corporate finance.
Professor Tourani-Rad is a professor of finance and is currently the deputy dean at the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law. He holds a BSc from the School of Planning and Computer Applications, Iran, an MBA from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and a PhD from the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. His research interests lie in the areas of corporate finance and governance, financial markets and commodities, international finance and investments, and fund performance.
Professor Gilbert holds a PhD degree from Auckland University of Technology and is the Head of the Department of Finance. His research interests include law and finance, financial capability, corporate governance, and market microstructure.
Ayesha holds a PhD in Financial Econometrics from Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Her research, teaching, and professional interests focus on improving New Zealanders’ understanding of healthy financial relationships and their personal financial fitness.
Dr Cui received a PhD from the University of Auckland. Her research interests are performance measurement and sustainability. She has skills in analytical methods for quantitative analysis methods with a specific focus on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA).
Dr Koerniadi holds a PhD degree from Auckland University of Technology. His research interests include corporate finance, corporate governance and earnings management.
Dr Thanh Vu holds a PhD in Finance from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. His research focuses on behavioural finance, asset pricing, investment and the application of machine learning and AI in finance.
Dr Badshah holds a PhD degree from Hanken School of Economics, Finland. His areas of research include empirical asset pricing, financial market integration, market microstructure, derivatives and emerging markets.
Dr Iris holds a PhD degree from the University of Otago. Her areas of research include empirical asset pricing, investments, market microstructure, derivatives and risk management.
Dr Da Fonseca's (PhD - University Claude Bernard Lyon I, France) research has a strong quantitative focus and deals with issues around the pricing of derivative products and risk management.
Dr Chen holds a PhD degree in Finance from University of Texas at San Antonio, the United States. His current research interests are in the areas of corporate finance, market microstructure, international finance, investments, and real estate.
Nava holds a PhD in Finance from The University of Auckland. Her expertise lies in corporate finance, board of directors and firm performance.
Professor Nguyen’s (PhD – Massey University) research interests cover corporate governance, market microstructure, market liquidity, and behavioural finance.
Dr Yang holds a PhD degree from Auckland University of Technology. His current research interests include behavioural finance, market microstructure, social media analysis and natural language processing.
Dr Hegde holds a PhD degree from Purdue University, USA. His research interests span topics in empirical corporate finance, corporate governance and asset pricing with a focus on institutional trading behaviour, role of board of directors in firm performance and textual analyses in finance.
Sara Ali holds a PhD degree from the University of Karachi. Her research interest includes asset pricing, financial risk management, investments, hedge funds, and financial econometrics, and recent research focuses on economic policy uncertainty and institutional investors' behaviour. Sara specialises in handling and analysing textual data using industry-standard software like STATA and SAS, developing Python codes to explore the emerging topics in research.
Dr Kumar holds a PhD degree from the Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. His expertise is in the area of time series and panel data analysis.
Dr Bahadar holds a PhD degree from Lincoln University, New Zealand. His research interests include Financial Markets, Corporate Finance, and Corporate Governance.
Dr. Syrus holds a PhD from the University of Otago. His expertise includes accounting and finance activities in impact investing, non-profit and social enterprise, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. He also has skills in various qualitative research methods, including thematic analysis, interview-based data analysis, inductive analysis, content analysis, and grounded theory analysis.
Dr Yang holds a PhD degree from the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She specialises in the area of empirical asset pricing, financial intermediary and sustainable finance.
Zsarra is the research coordinator for the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law Research Office and the coordinator for the Auckland Centre for Financial Research.
Honorary Fellows:
Professor Bart Frijns, PhD
Prof. Frijns is a Full Professor, Department of Accounting and Finance, Research Line Resilience (part of LIRS program) at Open Universiteit: Heerlen, NL. His research expertise is in empirical finance and applied financial econometrics, which he has applied in the areas of market microstructure, volatility modelling, etc.
Professor Robert I. Webb, PhD
Prof. Webb is the Paul Tudor Jones II Research Professor at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, USA. Prof. Webb holds a PhD from the University of Chicago and has extensive industry experience in futures markets. Prof. Webb is the editor of the Journal of Futures Markets.
Associate Fellows:
Dr Adrian Fernandez-Perez
Dr Fernandez-Perez holds a PhD degree from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. His research expertise is in financial econometrics, computational economics, fixed income and commodities.
Professor Sugato Chakravarti, PhD
Professor Chakravarti is with the Department of Consumer Science at Purdue University, US. He holds a doctorate from Indiana University. Prof. Chakravarti’s research interests are in the areas of Investments; Asset Pricing; Stock, Bond, and Options Markets; Market Microstructure; International Finance; Small Business Finance; Banking Relationships; Corporate Finance; Household Behavior and Family Economics related to Investments and Retirement.
Dr Indriawan holds a PhD degree from Auckland University of Technology. His expertise focuses on macroeconomic news announcements and underlying market microstructure theory that drives prices of stocks listed in multiple markets.
Professor James W Kolari, PhD
Professor Kolari is from the Mays Business School, Texas A & M University where he has taught financial markets and institutions since earning his PhD in 1980. He has published over 90 refereed articles, 10 co-authored books and numerous monographs.
Professor Thorsten Lehnert, PhD
Professor Lehnert is with the Luxembourg School of Finance (LSF) at the University of Luxembourg and holds a PhD in Finance from Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Prof. Lehnert is the Co-head of the Doctoral School of Economics and Finance at the LSF. His research interests are in the area of volatility modelling and option pricing.
Professor Qian Sun, PhD
Professor Sun is the head of the Department of Finance at Fudan University, China. Prof. Sun has a PhD from Arizona State University, US, and has an extensive publication record in the area of Corporate Finance and Investments.
Dr Remco Zwinkels, PhD
Dr Zwinkels is an Associate Professor at the Free university Amsterdam, the Netherlands and has a doctorate from the Radboud University, the Netherlands. Dr Zwinkels’ research expertise is in the area of Heterogeneous Agent Modelling and Behavioural Finance.
Dr JinGi Ha, PhD
Dr Ha completed his PhD in Finance at Singapore Management University. His previous research developed a simple measure for implied informed trading and proved its effectiveness. His research areas of interest include market microstructure and mutual fund governance.
PhD students
- Damon Yu
- Derwyn Hamidon
- Kelly Nicholson
- Thang Nguyen
- Zam Suan Mung
Visiting researchers
Many high-profile, international researchers have visited our centre over the years.
Scholarships and positions
Find out about scholarships and other opportunities available in our centre.