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Sean Cao serves as Associate Professor (with tenure) at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, where he is Director and Co-founder of the AI Initiative for Capital Market Research. He also holds an affiliation as professor at Harvard Business School's D 3 Institute. His academic journey began with a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Cao's research focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence and capital markets, with particular expertise in how machine learning transforms financial analysis, corporate disclosure practices, and investment decision-making. His work examines the evolving relationship between human analysts and AI systems, blockchain applications in financial reporting, and the strategic adaptation of corporate communications for machine readership. He has pioneered research on the "AI divide" among investor groups and developed frameworks for human-AI collaborative stock analysis. His publication portfolio spans top journals including Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Accounting Research, and Management Science. The research demonstrates consistent thematic progression toward increasingly sophisticated AI applications in finance, with recent work exploring distributed ledger technologies for auditing, machine learning for extracting private information from disclosures, and the economics of greenwashing in ESG funds. His studies frequently combine textual analysis with traditional financial metrics to uncover novel market insights. Fama-DFA Prize from Journal of Financial Economics for best paper in capital markets and asset pricing Michael J. Brennan Award from Review of Financial Studies Deloitte Initiative for AI and Learning award for developing trustworthy AI for social equity PanAgora Asset Management's Dr. Richard A. Crowell Memorial Prize Multiple best paper awards from Midwest Finance Association, Global AI Finance Conference, and Asian Finance Association Dr. Cao has delivered over 200 invited research talks at major institutions including the Central Bank of Japan, Central Bank of Thailand, and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He serves as Guest Associate Editor for Management Science and has co-chaired Review of Financial Studies conferences on FinTech and Machine Learning. His educational initiatives include a widely adopted free AI textbook for finance and accounting that has been implemented at universities worldwide including Indiana University, UT Dallas, and University of Minnesota. As Director of the AI Initiative for Capital Market Research, Dr. Cao leads a multidisciplinary team exploring practical AI applications in finance. The initiative has secured significant funding including a $150,000 grant from GRF CPAs & Advisors. His research group maintains strong industry connections through partnerships with regulatory bodies, financial institutions, and technology companies, facilitating the translation of academic research into practical financial applications.

• Artificial Intelligence in Finance
• Machine Learning Applications
• Capital Market Research
• +5 more

Yaping Zheng serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Accounting and Business Analytics within the Alberta School of Business at the University of Alberta. Her current teaching responsibilities include ACCTG 222: Introduction to Accounting for Management Decision Making, a course focused on cost behavior analysis, budgeting, and performance measures for management decisions, scheduled for Winter Term 2026 with office location at 3-21C Business Building. Her research spans critical areas in contemporary accounting: Financial Reporting and Corporate Disclosure mechanisms Textual Analysis applications in accounting contexts Big Data integration for financial analysts Management decision-making through accounting information systems Dr. Zheng's recent publication in Management Science (2025) examines empirical evidence of big data adoption by financial analysts, revealing its impact on disclosure practices and reporting usefulness. This work bridges advanced analytics with traditional accounting frameworks to address evolving market demands. No scientific awards were documented in the source materials, though publication in this premier journal signifies substantial scholarly contribution. Information regarding student supervision, research grants, or laboratory affiliations was not provided in the available texts.

• Financial Reporting
• Corporate Disclosure
• Textual Analysis in Accounting
• +2 more

Zhi Da is the Howard J. and Geraldine F. Korth Chair in Finance and Professor of Finance at the University of Notre Dame , Mendoza College of Business, Department of Finance. He completed his Ph.D. in Finance at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management (2006), preceded by an M.Sc. in Financial Engineering from the National University of Singapore (2001) and a B.B.A. with First-Class Honors (1999) from the same institution. Holding editorial roles at Journal of Finance , Management Science , Review of Financial Studies and several other top journals, he is a leading voice in empirical finance research. Education Ph.D. in Finance, 2006 – Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University M.Sc. in Financial Engineering, 2001 – National University of Singapore B.B.A. (1st Class Honors), 1999 – National University of Singapore Research Interests Zhi Da’s scholarship sits at the intersection of asset pricing , behavioral finance , and market microstructure . He investigates how investor attention, institutional trading, liquidity frictions, and information flows jointly determine the cross-section of expected returns. His work delves into retail margin trading, the role of pension-fund flows in exchange-rate dynamics, the informational content of SEC filings, and the efficiency of short-selling mechanisms. By combining large-scale data analytics, textual analysis, and structural modeling, he uncovers novel predictors of returns ranging from presidential approval ratings to real-time attention measures. Recent projects explore fractional trading ’s impact on price efficiency, hedging demand as a driver of intraday momentum, and the hidden effort problem in delegated portfolio management. These themes collectively advance our understanding of limits to arbitrage and the formation of extrapolative beliefs. Publication Landscape Spanning 2025 back to 2009, his 15 most recent articles in Journal of Finance , Review of Financial Studies , Management Science , Journal of Financial Economics , and Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis converge on three broad motifs: (1) micro-level trading frictions—liquidity costs, margin requirements, and short-selling constraints; (2) macro-finance linkages—exchange rates, fiscal policy, and global capital flows; and (3) information economics—attention allocation, media analytics, and regulatory disclosures. The collective evidence demonstrates that seemingly small trading or informational frictions aggregate into large, persistent cross-sectional return predictability. Honors and Awards 2017 William F. Sharpe Award for Best Paper, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis Lead-article distinctions in Journal of Finance , Review of Financial Studies , and Management Science Featured coverage in SmartMoney and CNBC Teaching & Mentorship At Notre Dame’s Mendoza College, Professor Da teaches Investments (undergraduate and MBA) and Fixed Income Securities , integrating cutting-edge research insights into the curriculum. While specific advisees are not listed, his extensive co-author network (22+ recurring collaborators) attests to a vibrant mentoring environment. Laboratory & Data Resources He publicly distributes the NAT (Net Arbitrage Trading) dataset, a stock-quarter panel of arbitrage positions used in Chen, Da & Huang (2019). This resource has become a standard tool for researchers studying arbitrage capital movements.

• Asset Pricing
• Behavioral Finance
• Market Microstructure
• +7 more

Dr. Sarah Smith is a Lecturer (Teaching & Scholarship) in the Business School at the University of Aberdeen, appointed in June 2020. She previously served as Reader at the University of Stirling from 2015 and as Senior Lecturer in Accounting, following a lectureship at Heriot-Watt University from 2001 to 2008. Education: BAcc in Accountancy, University of Stirling (1996, First Class Honours) MSc by Research, University of Stirling (1998) PhD, University of Stirling (2003) Her research centers on accounting and finance, with a strong focus on intellectual capital disclosure, corporate financing decisions, leasing, and academic labor in UK higher education. She employs empirical and methodological approaches, including content analysis and survey research, to explore disclosure practices and financial decision-making. Her work addresses both corporate reporting behavior and the sociology of accounting academia. Her recent publications (2018) analyze academic labor shortages in UK accounting departments and the role of social capital in PhD assessment, reflecting her dual interest in financial reporting and academic practice. Earlier works from the 2000s examine leasing, lease-debt substitutability, and the impact of disclosure on equity risk, establishing a long-standing contribution to financial accounting research. Scientific Awards: Best thesis on leasing across Europe (2003, Leaseurope) Carnegie Trust PhD Scholarship Dr. Smith has advised on research and contributed to academic discourse through extensive publishing, though no formal PhD or Master’s students are listed. She has not been associated with specific grants in the text, but her PhD was externally funded. Her teaching qualification (PGCAP) underscores her commitment to scholarship in education. She has not been affiliated with any named research labs or collaborative teams in the provided text, but her frequent co-authorship with Valerie Urquhart and Vic Beattie indicates strong research collaborations.

• Accounting
• Finance
• Corporate Finance
• +7 more

Xinjie (Cynthia) Ma is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Accounting at the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business. Previously, she held a Visiting Assistant Professor position at the University of Iowa in 2025. Her research bridges financial accounting with advanced technologies, focusing on corporate disclosure mechanisms, human capital valuation, and AI/NLP applications in capital markets. She earned her PhD in Accounting from Temple University in 2021. Research Expertise : Financial accounting, CSR strategy alignment, human capital analytics, and machine learning applications Publications : 2023 Review of Accounting Studies paper on CSR-performance alignment, 2022 The Accounting Review article on text-based investment opportunity sets Teaching : Instructed graduate Financial Statement Analysis at National University of Singapore (2021-2025), undergraduate Managerial Accounting at Temple University (2019) Academic Affiliation : Tippie College of Business Her recent work analyzes how textual disclosures in 10-K filings inform investment decisions and explores labor demand dynamics through real-time market data. Currently, she's developing machine learning models to predict startup innovation potential and examining managerial communication patterns in earnings calls. Email: xinjie-ma@uiowa.edu

• Financial Accounting
• Corporate Disclosure
• Human Capital
• +3 more

Ion Androutsopoulos is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Informatics at Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB), where he also serves as Head of Department. He is founder and co-director of AUEB's Natural Language Processing Group and an Adjunct Researcher at the Digital Curation Unit and "Archimedes" Research Unit of the Research Centre "Athena". His research spans multiple dimensions of Artificial Intelligence with a focus on Natural Language Processing. Key interests include: Machine learning in NLP, particularly deep learning and large language models Question answering and retrieval augmented generation for document collections Dialog systems for new languages and knowledge domains Sentiment analysis and emotion recognition from text and speech Detecting toxic posts and disinformation online Image-to-text generation for medical diagnostics NLP applications in biomedical, legal, and financial domains His recent publications demonstrate strong activity across medical AI (particularly ImageCLEFmed Caption competitions where his group consistently ranks 1st-2nd), legal NLP (LexGLUE benchmark), financial NLP (EDGAR-CRAWLER), and multilingual challenges. His work shows increasing emphasis on large language models, explainability, and practical applications. Notable awards include: Top 2% scientist worldwide (Stanford University database, 2023) Multiple AUEB Excellent Teaching Awards (2017-18, 2021-22, 2023-24) Three consecutive BioASQ awards (2018-2020) Multiple 1st/2nd place rankings in ImageCLEFmed Caption competitions (2021-2025) He actively organizes major events including the Athens Natural Language Processing Summer School (AthNLP) and SemEval tasks. His group maintains strong industry and research collaborations, particularly in medical AI applications where they've developed systems that generate diagnostic captions from medical images with state-of-the-art performance.

• Artificial Intelligence
• Natural Language Processing
• Machine Learning
• +7 more

Sam Rawsthorne is a Researcher and PhD candidate in Accounting and Finance at Lancaster University Management School (LUMS). He holds a Bachelor's and Master's from Lancaster University, with academic excellence recognized by multiple awards. His research focuses on corporate narrative disclosure, strategic communication, and regulatory impacts. Currently, he interns at Railpen's Quantitative Strategies team and collaborates with institutions like the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) and Pensions and Life Savings Association (PLSA). Professional qualifications include completing CFA Levels I and II. Education: Bachelor's in Accounting and Finance, Lancaster University Master's in Advanced Financial Analysis, Lancaster University Teaching: Teaching Assistant for Programming and Databases for Financial Applications (2019–Present) Senior Writing Mentor, Academic Writing Zone (2020–Present) Engagement: Workshops on textual analysis with INQUIRE UK Research projects with FRC and PLSA His thesis examines how firms align strategic disclosures with stakeholder expectations and regulatory mandates, analyzing both drivers and outcomes of disclosure policies. Recent activities include presenting at the BAFA Doctoral Colloquium and participating in IASB public meetings.

• Corporate Disclosure
• Narrative Communication
• Financial Reporting
• +3 more

Jenny Li Zhang is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, specializing in the Division of Accounting and Information Systems. She holds the Ronald L. Cliff Professor in Accounting chair and serves as Chair of her division. BBA from Peking University MBA from the University of Utah PhD from the University of Washington Her research focuses on financial reporting, corporate disclosure, and the impact of managerial style on accounting practices. She investigates pension accounting, special purpose entities, and corporate governance mechanisms. Her recent work explores investor influence on financial analysts and cross-border communication challenges. Key trends in her publications include corporate governance reforms, earnings call tone analysis, and off-balance sheet reporting. Medical-related articles (e.g., tracheal smooth muscle studies) may represent unrelated noise in the data. Scientific awards include the Ronald L. Cliff Professor in Accounting. She teaches advanced research methods to PhD students in accounting.

• Financial Reporting
• Corporate Disclosure
• Pension Accounting
• +4 more

Gregory S. Miller is Ernst & Young Professor of Accounting at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business. His research examines financial communication mechanisms, specifically how corporate managers convey firm information to external stakeholders and how market structures influence communication effectiveness. Professor Miller maintains editorial roles at leading journals including The Accounting Review and Journal of Accounting and Economics. Research concentrations include: Information flow dynamics in financial markets Managerial communication strategies Impact of disclosure regulations on market efficiency Investor relations and shareholder activism Cross-cultural aspects of financial disclosure Publications appear in top-tier journals including The Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, and Journal of Accounting Research. His practitioner-oriented work has been featured in Harvard Business Review and Investor Relations Quarterly. Educational credentials include PhD from University of Michigan (1998) and BS in Accounting from Miami University (1990). Professional experience includes four years as auditor at Arthur Andersen.

• Financial Communication
• Information Economics
• Capital Markets
• +2 more

Walid Ben Amar is a Full Professor and holder of the Ian Telfer Research Fellowship at the Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa. He holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration from HEC Montréal and is a Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CGA) in Ontario. Education: Maîtrise (Institut des Hautes Etudes Commerciales), Maîtrise (UQAM), Ph.D. (HEC Montréal) Key Research Areas: Corporate Governance, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Climate Risk Reporting, Gender Diversity in Boards, ESG Performance, Textual Analysis in Financial Reporting His funded research (2017-2024) focuses on climate risk disclosures, gender diversity impacts, and ESG performance, supported by SSHRC grants and partnerships with institutions like CPA Ontario and Europlace Institute of Finance. He has published extensively in journals such as Journal of Business Ethics , Accounting Horizons , and European Accounting Review , examining topics like CSR resilience during crises, gender-diverse board disclosures, and ESG-driven financial outcomes. Scientific awards include the University of Ottawa Excellence in Education Prize (2019). Teaching: Financial Accounting (Undergraduate & Graduate Programs) Funded Research: 2022-2024 SSHRC Insight Development Grant ($49,504), 2021-2023 French Accounting Standards Authority Grant ($71,578), and others

• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Sustainable Finance
• +5 more

Xiao Han is a Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Finance at the Bayes Business School , part of the City, University of London . His research focuses on investor expectations, asset pricing, and the application of machine learning in finance. He holds a PhD in Finance from the University of Edinburgh and a Higher Education Fellowship in the UK. Education: PhD in Finance, University of Edinburgh (2017-2021) MSc Finance with Risk Management, University of Bath (2016-2017) B.A. in Accounting, Dongbei University of Finance and Economics & Curtin University (2012-2016) His research interests include subjective investor expectations , financial institutions and demand-based pricing , and machine learning applications in Fintech . He has held visiting positions at the Wharton School, Peking University, and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. His recent work explores topics such as return decomposition in financial markets, machine learning-driven earnings analysis, and the impact of investor sentiment on mispricing. His research has been published in top journals like the Journal of Financial Economics and Review of Financial Studies . Awards: Best Paper Award in Investments (Eastern Finance Association) Jacobs Levy Center Research Best Paper Prize 2023 Marshall Blume Prize in Financial Research 2023 Xiao Han serves as a referee for journals including Journal of Financial Economics , Review of Financial Studies , and Management Science . His work bridges theoretical finance with practical applications in Fintech and behavioral economics.

• Asset Pricing
• Financial Institutions
• Machine Learning
• +3 more

Marwa Soliman is an Assistant Professor in the School of Business at St. John Fisher University, joining in Spring 2024. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Ottawa and is a Certified Management Accountant (CMA). Her research examines: Impact of political uncertainty on corporate disclosures Textual features in financial reporting Corporate social responsibility disclosures Executive career concerns in governance Publications appear in top journals including The Accounting Review and International Review of Financial Analysis. Her doctoral dissertation received a best dissertation nomination in social sciences.

• Accounting Disclosure
• Corporate Governance
• Political Economics
• +3 more

Harry Mamaysky is a Professor at Columbia Business School , where he directs the Program for Financial Studies and the MS program in Financial Economics. He also leads the Chief Investment Officer executive education program, teaching capital markets, asset pricing, and data analytics to MBA, Masters, and PhD students. Education: PhD in Finance (MIT), BS/MS in Computer Science (Brown University) His research spans empirical and theoretical asset pricing , market microstructure , and the interplay of information and trading. He pioneers methods integrating large textual datasets (e.g., news, earnings calls) with machine learning to analyze market dynamics, including the impacts of overnight news on returns and news-topic modeling . Recent publications focus on oil market forecasting, Federal Reserve policy, and the role of textual data in understanding regulatory costs , credit information , and macroeconomic stress . These works highlight cross-disciplinary methodologies bridging finance , economics , and data science . Harry’s industry experience includes founding Citigroup’s Systemic Risk Group, senior portfolio management at Citi Principal Strategies, and roles at Old Lane and Morgan Stanley. He also served as an Assistant Professor of Finance at the Yale School of Management (2000–02). He is affiliated with the Financial and Business Analytics Committee , emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration in financial research.

• Asset Pricing
• Market Microstructure
• Financial Data Analytics
• +3 more

Sabri Boubaker is a Professor in the Department of Accounting and Finance at the School of Management , Swansea University. He holds a PhD from Université de Paris-Est and has an extensive publication record, with over 90 Scopus-indexed articles and 900+ citations. As co-founder of the Paris Financial Management Conference and the Vietnam Symposium in Banking and Finance , and President of the International Society for the Advancement of Financial Economics (ISAFE) , he is a key figure in empirical finance. He leads the Hawkes Seminar Series , attracting global speakers to engage with staff and students. His research focuses on ownership structure , control of listed companies , and the intersection of corporate governance with environmental finance . Recent work examines the impacts of climate policy , corporate carbon risk , and banking stability using advanced analytical frameworks like DEA-machine learning and MCDA . His supervision includes PhD projects in Islamic banking , though specific student names are not listed. Professor Boubaker’s publications span top-tier journals such as the Journal of Corporate Finance , Financial Management , and British Journal of Management , addressing topics like debt choice , sovereign wealth funds , and anti-corruption campaigns . He is an active member of the Hawkes Centre for Empirical Finance , contributing to global discourse on financial economics.

• Corporate Finance
• Ownership Structure
• Financial Management
• +4 more

Dr Annika Beelitz is a Lecturer in Accounting at the Department of Accounting, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham. She serves as the Senior Academic Tutor and contributes to teaching in advanced financial accounting. Her research focuses on corporate social responsibility, corporate communication, and sustainability reporting, particularly in crisis contexts. Education: PhD in Accounting, Bangor University, 2017 MSc in Accounting and Finance, Bangor University, 2010 BA in International Cultural and Business Studies, University of Passau, 2009 Her research interests lie at the intersection of accounting, communication, and sustainability. She employs qualitative and interpretive methods, especially discourse analysis, to explore how organizations communicate during legitimacy crises, such as nuclear incidents or climate-related disclosures. Her work is interdisciplinary, bridging accounting, linguistics, and organizational studies. The recent publications highlight a consistent focus on corporate discourse, sustainability framing, and CSR communication. Her studies analyze both textual and strategic aspects of reporting, with increasing attention to climate change and net-zero transitions. She has published in top-tier journals such as the Journal of Business Ethics , Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal , and International Journal of Corpus Linguistics . Professional Service: Executive Member, Interdisciplinary Perspectives Special Interest Group (IPSIG), British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA) Editorial Review Board, Accounting Forum Ad hoc reviewer for: Journal of Business Ethics, Social and Environmental Accountability Journal, British Accounting Review, Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, Accounting and the Public Interest, Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Journal of Business Research Dr Beelitz is actively involved in the academic community, providing peer review services and contributing to editorial work. She supervises qualitative research projects, particularly those involving interpretive text analyses in CSR and corporate communication. There is no mention of external grants or lab affiliations, but her research collaborations are evident through co-authored publications. She does not appear to have a named research lab or team, but her work is embedded within broader academic networks in accounting and sustainability research.

• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Corporate Reporting
• Corporate Communication
• +7 more