Blockchain Initiative

Cesare joined the Finance Faculty at the McCombs School of Business in 2009. His primary research interest is in the area of corporate finance and fintech. His research includes work on corporate governance, executive compensation, credit rating agencies, small business financing, and the effects of social networks and cultural preferences on financial policies. His articles have been published in the top Finance journals, such as the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. He teaches Financial Technology and Corporate Valuation in the MBA program, and Empirical Methods in Corporate Finance in the PhD program. Cesare holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano (Italy), and an MBA and PhD in Finance from UCLA Anderson. He was a visiting professor at the Wharton School in 2012/2013. Before his PhD, he worked as strategic management consultant at Booz Allen and Roland Berger in Italy, and as summer intern at the United Nations in New York.

Dr. Vishwanath received his B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, M.S. from CalTech and his Ph.D. from Stanford University, all in electrical engineering. His research interests include information theory, wireless communications and coding theory. His industry experience includes work at the National Semiconductor Corporation, CA and at the Lucent Bell labs, NJ. He has won a NSF CAREER Award and the 2005 IEEE Joint IT/Comsoc Best Paper Award.

Laura Starks's research on finance issues has appeared in leading academic journals including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Business, and Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, among many others. She has presented her work at universities around the world and received a number of awards. Her recent research focuses on institutional investors, particularly mutual funds, and corporate governance. Professor Starks has served as an expert witness in federal cases for Wells Fargo, Merrill Lynch Asset Management, Vesta Insurance Company, and Dupont. Recently, she provided expert consulting assistance in Florida State Board of Administration [FSBA] v. Alliance Capital Management, in which a Florida jury found Alliance Capital not liable for the losses incurred by the FSBA pension fund as a result of Alliance Capital's investments in Enron stock. Professor Starks serves as an independent director for TIAA-CREF Mutual Funds, CREF Retirement Account, and for USAA Mutual Funds. She also serves on both the Investment Advisory Committee (two years as chairman) and the Mutual Funds Product Review Committee for the Employees Retirement System of the State of Texas.

Dr. Prabhudev Konana is the William H. Seay Centennial Professor of Information Management and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the McCombs School of Business. His research interests are in databases, sentiment extraction from virtual communities, business value of IT, and outsourcing and offshoring. He graduated with an MBA and Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 1991 and 1995, respectively.

Prabhudev is a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teacher, the highest teaching award at the University of Texas at Austin. He received the University of Texas Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award in 2011 and outstanding professor award from graduating classes of Dallas/Fort Worth MBA Students in 2011 and 2012. He is consistently selected to the Faculty Honor Roll by both MBA and UG student councils, and more recently to the “Professor of the Month” award given by the Senate of College Councils.

Prabhudev has received numerous teaching and research awards. He received the prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award and NSF Information Technology Research grant. His research is also supported by grants from IBM, Intel and Dell. He has published over hundred papers in journals, magazines, and conference proceedings including Sloan Management Review, Management Science, Information Systems Research, and numerous IEEE journals. His paper on virtual communities received the Best Published Paper award for 2007 from the prestigious Information Systems Research journal. He is a co-founder of a non-profit organization to support primary education in India. He frequently writes for a leading English daily in India on social and economic issues.

Douglas Morrice holds the Bobbie and Coulter R. Sublett Centennial Professorship in Business. He is also Professor of Operations Management and a Senior Research Fellow in the University of Texas Supply Chain Management Center of Excellence, a company-sponsored center dedicated to developing research and teaching programs in supply chain management in the Red McCombs School of Business. He served as Information, Risk, and Operations Management Department Chair from 2007-2011. Dr. Morrice received his Ph.D. in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering from Cornell University. He has worked on projects with Schlumberger, SAP, Dell, HEB Grocery Company, and the University Health Sciences Center, San Antonio. His healthcare work has been funded by a University of Texas Systems grant and the Texas Catalyst program. Most recently, he has been involved in a project on materials management in the construction industry that is being funded by the Construction Industry Institute. Dr. Morrice has over 60 technical publications and 2 patents.