Finance

Aaron Burt is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Oklahoma State University's Spears School of Business, where he holds the Greg Massey Professorship in Finance. He earned his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Washington and has research interests spanning asset pricing, corporate finance, governance, and venture capital. His published work includes studies on director influence on firm value (Review of Financial Studies, 2020) and return predictability from economically linked firms (Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 2021). His current working papers have earned recognition at leading conferences, including Best Overall Paper at Finance Down Under 2023 and Best Corporate Finance Paper at the Eastern Finance Association 2023. His corporate finance work focuses particularly on the advisory role of directors and VC partners, examining how their commitment and expertise shape firm outcomes. His asset pricing work studies stock market efficiency, with a particular emphasis on risk factors and anomalies.  

Dr. Byers is an Assistant Professor of Professional Practice in the Department of Finance in the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University, and an adjunct Professor of Financial Engineering at WorldQuant Univesity.   Dr. Byers received his PhD from the Department of Finance in the Spears College of Business at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma in May 2004.  He has taught at Oklahoma State University, Montclair State University, Georgian Court University, Our Lady of the Lake University, the University of Tulsa, and Barton County Community College.  His previous teaching experience includes undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral seminars covering financial management, risk management, quantitative finance, capital structure, energy finance, derivatives, and corporate finance.

Dr. Byers is a Finance Professional and Academic with leadership, management, and technical expertise in financial management, business strategy and planning, quantitative analytics, risk management, and financial controls. He has experience in industry and academia include investment valuation analysis, strategic financial planning, and risk analysis associated with a business or investment. His knowledge of finance, economics, and statistics have been enablers for innovative and creative approaches to financial management and analysis.

Qin Emma Wang is the Associate Professor of Finance and William S. Spears Chair at the Spears School of Business, Oklahoma State University. She received her PhD in Finance from the University of Arizona, and was previously an Assistant Professor of Finance at University of Michigan-Dearborn. 

Her research focuses on a variety of issues in empirical investment, market microstructure, and behavioral finance, including stock returns, liquidity, volatility, individual and institutional investor trading behavior, trade size clustering, and information flows. She is particularly interested in addressing finance phenomena from the market microstructure perspective. Her research has been published in top finance journals, including the Review of Financial Studies and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and has attracted interest in the popular press and practitional field. Her research has been presented at major academic venues across seven countries including US, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico,  Singapore, and UK, attaining an international reputation.  

She has mentored students at the undergrad, master, and doctoral levels over the years. Her former students include financial analysts, wealth managers, and finance professors across the US. She is also involved with journal refereeing process and has reviewed papers over the years.