A Focus on Research of the Highest Quality

Ph.D. students are provided with excellent support for work in their field due to the development of a "critical mass" of talent among the McCombs faculty for each doctoral program. In addition, all of the Ph.D. programs provide excellent opportunities for multidisciplinary research that cuts across functional disciplines in the school and across departments in other schools within the University. Read McCombs working papers on SSRN and check the  McCombs Research Calendar.

INNOVATIVE RESEARCH CENTERS

There are thirteen different Research Centers, Bureaus and Institutes within or closely associated with the McCombs School of Business, directed by faculty nationally recognized in their fields. As one example, consider the EDS Financial Trading and Technology Center, a state-of-the-art trading, research and teaching facility. The Center offers four unique benefits to Ph.D. students:

• Data Access - It provides researchers with access to real-time data feeds from leading sources of financial information including Bloomberg, Bridge, Dow-Jones Telerate and Reuters.
• Pedagogical tools - It allows Ph.D. students to gain experience in the most advanced pedagogical tools available due to the cutting-edge audio-visual and distance learning systems that are integrated into the complex.
• Advanced technology - Given its advanced technology and constant updating through relationships with over forty technology and Wall Street firms, the Center serves as a laboratory for the development of the financial models and technology of tomorrow.
• Research Centers - The McCombs Research Centers are open to supporting Ph.D. student research through the provision of data from computer resident archives, access to proprietary data or field sites, or specialized software.

STRONG STUDENT PUBLISHING RECORD

Research assistant appointments historically lead to extensive research mentoring and even co-authoring opportunities. Past Ph.D. research assistants have co-authored works in such venerable journals as:

• Journal of Accounting Research
• Accounting Review
• Administrative Science Quarterly
• Academy of Management Journal
• Strategic Management Journal
• Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
• Organization Science
• The Journal of Risk and Insurance
• MIS Quarterly
• Operations Research
• Management Science
• Manufacturing and Service Operations Management
• Production and Operations Management

TOP LIBRARIES

Comprehensive data can also be obtained through the University’s excellent libraries system. In fact, the University of Texas at Austin has the fifth-largest academic library system in the United States. Conveniently, the Perry Castaneda Library–the main library on campus–is located directly across the street from the McCombs School of Business. In addition, students and faculty can conveniently view UT's extensive library collections online.

The University of Texas Libraries offers 50+ business specific online database that focus on news, scholarly articles, company and industry information, market data, financials and more. You have access to these resources anywhere, anytime 24/7 with your UT EID.

The Business Librarian serves as the University of Texas Libraries liaison to the McCombs School of Business, providing research assistance in person, and via chat and e-mail. The Business Librarian also teaches course-specific research instruction, and collaborates with business school faculty to enhance the library’s business services and collections of print and electronic materials.

UNIQUE BEHAVIORAL LAB

The McCombs School Behavioral Research Laboratory facilitates leading-edge research on issues that affect individual or organizational performance. It is available to all McCombs School faculty members and Ph.D. students through a reservation process. The laboratory consists of two major areas:

• A large room with one-way mirror viewing and recording capabilities that can be configured in multiple ways
• A room containing 12 state-of-the art networked workstations

ABUNDANT COMPUTING RESOURCES

Top-notch computing resources abound in both the McCombs School of Business and the University as a whole. In the Business School alone, available to Ph.D. students, there are:

• more than 250 desktop computers in five labs
• 400 laptop notebook computer ports and virtually complete wireless coverage
• individual computers for each Ph.D. student in his or her office
• a computer lab (CBA 5.336A) for the exclusive use of Ph.D. students at McCombs, including 4 computers and a laser printer, a conference/work table, whiteboards and lounging area.

Find out more about the computer labs at McCombs that are open to Ph.D. students. Another computing resource available for Ph.D. students is the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), which provides comprehensive advanced computing resources, including high performance computing (HPC) systems, advanced scientific visualization (SciVis) resources and massive data storage/archival systems.