tepper - Carnegie Mellon University

TEPPER School of Business
important because they are the very reason the Tepper School has been
as successful as it has been,” Risch said.
INVESTING IN STRENGTH
The concept of computational finance, or financial engineering, originated
at Carnegie Mellon University, and, although other schools have followed,
Carnegie Mellon’s unique and powerful strength in interdisciplinary
collaboration continues to keep it at the forefront of this special field.
Reinforcing this competitive institutional advantage, the PNC Professorship
in Computational Finance, announced in January, also furthers Dean Dunn’s
strategy to increase the chairs supporting the research of young faculty.
The chair, not yet awarded, was established through a gift of $1 million
from the PNC Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the PNC Financial
Services Group, and $250,000 from PNC executive management, headed by
James Rohr, chairman and chief executive officer of PNC.
“This endowment will help the Tepper School continue to provide the type
of education and research that has made it one of the top business schools
in the country,” said Rohr, also a member of the Tepper School’s Board of
Business Advisors and a lifetime trustee of Carnegie Mellon.
“The PNC Professorship in Computational Finance also represents an
investment in the Pittsburgh region’s economic vitality, as Carnegie Mellon
has established itself as an engine for growth and development.”
SECURING THE NOBEL INFLUENCE
The Richard P. and Virginia M. Simmons Distinguished Professorship
also supports the dean’s vision, not only by rewarding Kydland’s immense
academic contributions but also making possible the Nobel laureate’s
increased interaction with PhD candidates at the business school.
Kydland, who received a PhD in economics from Carnegie Mellon
University in 1973 and joined the business school’s faculty in 1978, shared
the 2004 prize in Economic Sciences with Edward Prescott, also a Carnegie
Mellon PhD alumnus and former Tepper School faculty member. They
were the fifth and sixth members of the Tepper School faculty to have won
Nobel prizes.
“I have strong views about what a great place the Tepper School is and
the potential here for great work,” Kydland said. “This chair is a great honor
and quite essential to helping me make a contribution. I want to focus
almost exclusively on basic research and helping to train great researchers.”
Simmons, retired chair of Allegheny Technologies, a specialty metals
manufacturer, is a devoted philanthropist and dedicated friend of
Carnegie Mellon. He also is a distinguished adjunct professor at the
Tepper School where he teaches a popular graduate course,
“Responsibilities and Perspectives of the CEO.”
“I’ve always admired Carnegie Mellon and am particularly impressed
with Dean Kenneth Dunn and the students at the Tepper School,”
Simmons said. “And I wanted to make a contribution that I thought would
help make a difference in the school’s continuing quest for excellence.”
GLOBAL REACH IN RESEARCH
The newly endowed chairs this academic year also include five at
the Carnegie Bosch Institute for Applied Studies in International
Management.
Constituting a new research committee at the 16-year-old global
institute, the endowed chairs are focused on developing new insights
into strategies and practices relevant to global organizations.
Appointed to the new Bosch chairs were:
1 Sunder Kekre – Bosch Professor of Manufacturing and Operations
Management and committee chair; director of the Center for
Business Solutions.
1 R. Ravi – Carnegie Bosch Professor of Operations Research and
Computer Science; associate dean for intellectual strategy.
1 Linda Argote – Carnegie Bosch Professor of Organizational
Behavior and Theory; editor-in-chief of Organization Science;
founding director of the Center for Organizational Learning,
Innovation and Performance.
1 Don Moore – Carnegie Bosch Faculty Development Chair;
associate professor of organizational behavior and theory.
1 Vishal Singh – Carnegie Bosch Faculty Development Chair;
assistant professor of marketing.
Clearly, the pace of academic innovation at the Tepper School is
moving strongly forward as marked by the establishment of these eight
chairs, giving faculty, students and administrators the tools and motivation
to continue their aim at understanding and solving the world’s most
significant business problems.
27
www.tepper.cmu.edu