Professor Laura Starks

Laura T. Starks, Ph.D., is the George Kozmetsky Centennial University Distinguished Chair at the McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on environmental, social and governance investing. Her current research focuses on sustainable finance issues, including climate finance and corporate governance; institutional investor issues, including shareholder activism; and household finance issues including long-term return expectations.

She is a Research Associate of the NBER, a Fellow and Research Member for the ECGI, and a Senior Fellow for ABFER. She has served as President of the Society of Financial Studies, Western Finance Association and Financial Management Association and is presently President-Elect of the American Finance Association.

She is the Editor of the FMA Survey and Synthesis Series, Advisory Editor for the Financial Analysts Journal and Financial Management and previously, Editor of the Review of Financial Studies. She has served or currently serves on mutual funds’ boards of directors, pension fund advisory committees, the Board of Governors of the Investment Company Institute, and the Governing Council of the Independent Directors Council, and advisory committees for the Norwegian Government Pension Fund.

She has received a number of awards for her research including the 1996 Smith Breeden Distinguished Paper Award from the Journal of Finance, the 1997 Western Finance Association Best Paper in Corporate Finance Award, the 1998 Financial Management Association Best Paper in Corporate Finance Award, 2001 Journal of Financial Research Outstanding Article Award , the 2003 and 2004 Financial Management Association European Meetings Best Paper Award, and the 2004 Fama-DFA Second Prize for Best Paper Published in Journal of Financial Economics.