Say hello to the newest faculty at Kellogg
This year, we’re thrilled to welcome new professors whose expertise spans international finance, credit, AI and other research topics at the forefront of the business world. Their curiosity, creativity and passion will continue to raise the bar in our classrooms. Get to know the newest members of the Kellogg faculty, and discover where they come from, why they chose Kellogg and how they spend their time beyond campus.
Sage Belz
- Assistant Professor, Finance
- Soon teaching: Entrepreneurial Finance and Venture Capital
What are you most looking forward to about being part of the Kellogg community?
I know that I will learn something new from faculty colleagues and students at Kellogg.
There is such a rich research community here. I’m excited to get to know my colleagues’ work better, and to be part of a community that is all about pushing the frontier outwards. I know that academic faculty have our own expertise to share, but we have a lot to learn from students with rich professional backgrounds, and I really look forward to hearing their stories and experiences.
I'm excited to learn from the students in my courses, too, who bring so much life experience and practical expertise into the classroom.
“There is such a rich research community here. I'm excited to get to know my colleagues' work better, and to be part of a community that is all about pushing the frontier outwards.”
What are you especially excited about in your research?
It's an exciting time to study international financial markets. They are where we express our hopes, expectations and fears about the future of the world economy.
Some of my research looks at how people around the world interact with a global financial system still dominated by U.S. institutions and the U.S. dollar, and specifically at how households and businesses in emerging and developing countries value the dollar. I think technology and geopolitics may be rapidly reshaping how they use it and challenging the standard ways economists have thought about these arrangements. So, it is a moment that is pushing us to rethink our approach to research in this area.
What is something you’ve listened to recently that you’d recommend?
I love history podcasts. One of my favorites is The Rest is History with Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook. There are stories for everyone on that show. Listening is a good way to wind down after a day of trying to keep up with the news and my work. It gives perspective when the world feels like it is changing quickly or the day is long, because that's not new. People have lived and evolved through very weird, topsy-turvy times before.
Alexander Ober
- Assistant Professor, Finance
- Currently teaching: Capital Markets
What are you especially excited about in your research?
I am interested in how aspects of the market “microstructure:” How trading works, affects asset prices, information and investors’ ability to reach optimal allocations. Given how quickly markets evolve, there are a lot of interesting questions to study in this area. Currently, I am working on projects that study the implications of changes in trading hours for financial markets. I am also interested in how different venues, such as dark pools or special matching sessions, affect and interact with trade on more traditional venues like exchange limit order books.
“An overarching theme of my work is trying to understand how different trading protocols affect market making and liquidity providers, since those traders are essential to the proper functioning of financial markets.”
An overarching theme of my work is trying to understand how different trading protocols affect market making and liquidity providers, since those traders are essential to the proper functioning of financial markets.
What first sparked your interest in the topics you study?
I started becoming interested in market microstructure through conversations with a fellow student who shared my PhD office. My PhD advisor is also an expert in the area, so that was a nice coincidence as well.
Is there something about your background or perspective that shapes the way you teach or approach your research?
I studied mathematics for my undergraduate and master's degrees. As a result, I enjoy solving problems, particularly mathematical or more technical ones. This naturally leads me to focus more on the inner workings or technical aspects of specific problems before trying to understand their broader implications. In teaching, this means I tend to prefer teaching topics in terms of their abstract theory first, followed by a lot of examples to make the theory more concrete.
What is a place you love visiting, and what keeps bringing you back?
I enjoy visiting my family in Dartmoor National Park in southwest England. It's very quiet there, there are many long walks and trails across the moor, and the internet is bad, so there are limited distractions.
Aakaash Rao
- Assistant Professor, Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences
- Currently teaching: Capital Markets
What are you most looking forward to at Kellogg?
The question on everyone's minds is how AI will change the kinds of things that are valuable to learn. I think Kellogg has done an exceptional job (re)designing the curriculum to ensure we equip students with skills that AI will complement, rather than substitute for. In Business Analytics, this gives us opportunities to focus on data, causality, and prediction at a high level, and emphasize the core insights of statistics without getting bogged down in technical details.
“The question on everyone's minds is how AI will change the kinds of things that are valuable to learn. I think Kellogg has done an exceptional job (re)designing the curriculum to ensure we equip students with skills that AI will complement, rather than substitute for.”
What drew you to Kellogg?
As a political economist, I'm particularly drawn to the school's distinctive combination of theory and empirics. The faculty here recognize that tackling fundamental questions about growth, conflict and populism requires looking for data in new places and creating data in new ways but also thinking carefully about when and where results are likely to generalize.
What is something you have been listening to lately that you would recommend?
I've been having a lot of fun listening to the Art of the Score podcast, which does deep dives into iconic film scores.
Chengyao Sun
- Assistant Professor, Marketing
- Currently teaching: Marketing Strategy for Growth and Defense
What are you especially excited about in your research?
My current work looks at co-branded credit cards, like the Amazon Prime Visa or the Macy’s American Express card. Because they run on a major payment network such as Visa, Mastercard or Amex, these cards can be used everywhere, inside and outside the brand printed on the front. Using data from credit card statements and scenario experiments, my coauthors and I found that people are reluctant to use them outside the featured brand, even when the card offers the best rewards for the purchase.
“I like that Evanston is quiet, which suits how I like to work. But Chicago is right there when I want it, which means you get calm without isolation. For me, this is a truly valuable combination.”
Two things seem to drive it. The featured brand logo on the card makes cardholders assume the card will reward purchases from that brand, and that assumption is so quietly convincing that people stop paying attention to the actual reward terms. And separately, using a department store credit card to book a flight may just feel wrong because the purchase doesn't match the card brand's product category, even though nothing is being violated except a vibe. I love this finding because the branding that makes a product appealing in the first place is also what limits how it gets used. That is a problem for the companies issuing these cards, given that co-branded products represent a huge share of what they offer.
What first sparked your interest in the topics you study?
I happened to read Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases in the last semester of my undergrad, and the book fascinated me. The gap between how human decisions are supposed to work and how they actually occur has been the thing I have been chasing ever since. A favorite example from my recent work: ask people what is most likely to happen from a set of discrete outcomes — say, which team will win next year's NBA championship — and then ask them to predict what will happen, and they will often name two different things. When the most likely outcome has a low likelihood, such as a 10% chance (meaning a 90% chance it won't happen), people tend to predict something other than what they themselves believe to be most likely to occur. When the most likely outcome still looks unlikely, people may feel licensed to depart from reasoning.
What drew you to Kellogg?
The research community, primarily. This is a department that has shaped how the field thinks about consumer behavior for decades and getting to work down the hall from the people doing that is a real privilege. Then, the location. I like that Evanston is quiet, which suits how I like to work. But Chicago is right there when I want it, which means you get calm without isolation. For me, this is a truly valuable combination.
What's something your colleagues or students might be surprised to learn about you?
I collect antiques, mostly Chinese ceramics and English table glass. It started as curiosity when I was an undergrad and has quietly turned into a serious hobby.
Megan Weber
- Donald P. Jacobs Scholar
- Assistant Professor, Marketing
- Currently teaching: Marketing Management
What first sparked your interest in the topics you study?
My first ever internship was at behavioral science consulting firm in San Francisco, and I remember finding it interesting to think about the application of psychological principles in the business world. That summer, I learned so much from seeing how my coworkers translated academic findings about how people think of recommendations that could help companies better communicate and connect with their customers. Many years later, I’m still drawn to these types of questions about how to help people make better decisions that are more aligned with their values and long-term goals.
“I always appreciate hearing from students about how the principles or frameworks from class connect to their experiences, and I’m excited for the opportunity to learn from the students here at Kellogg.”
What do you appreciate most of the students you teach?
Part of what I enjoy about researching and teaching marketing is that everyone has personal experience with it — examples of companies or brands or products that you love, that you’ve told other people about, that you’ve noticed doing something cool in their messaging or advertising. I always appreciate hearing from students about how the principles or frameworks from class connect to their experiences, and I’m excited for the opportunity to learn from the students here at Kellogg.
What is your favorite way to unwind outside work?
I grew up competitively Irish dancing from elementary school through college, and although my competitive days are behind me, I still enjoy joining a class or two these days. It’s a great workout and a great community here in Chicago!
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