A l u m n i M a g a z i n e - Duke University's Fuqua School of Business

Faculty N ews
Giuseppe (Pino) Lopomo
Assistant Professor, Economics
Assistant professor Guiseppe (Pino) Lopomo jests that
“no child will tell you he wants to become an economist
when he grows up.” In his native Italy, college-bound students
have to declare a major before they even start at
their prospective universities. Instead of initially following
a purely mathematical career path, Lopomo chose the field
of economics because it embraced a strong mathematics
curriculum combined with social science paradigms and
rigorous thinking.
Before accepting the
Fuqua post, Lopomo
held an assistant professor
position in the
economics department
at New York
University’s, Stern
School of Business for
six years. His decision
to come to Fuqua
was influenced by the
Triangle’s familyfriendly
environment
and the opportunity
to work with, in his
opinion, a first-rate
group of colleagues.
His goal for his students is to instill in them the
basic principles of microeconomics so they can eventually
apply them in the real-life arena. “I want to tell them how
I think the arena works and what the rules of the game
are so they can start playing in it.”
At Fuqua, Lopomo teaches a core microeconomics
course in both The Duke MBA (daytime) and Cross
Continent programs.
As an undergraduate he attended Bocconi University
in Milan, Italy, and earned is Ph.D. in economic analysis
and theory from the Graduate School of Business at
Stanford University in 1994.
His research interests include auction and bargaining
theory, mechanism design and industrial organization.
“Research is intriguing because you’re building mathematical
models; so you are thinking about real problems, but
you are using the language of math. That is the attracting
feature to me.”
18I F u q u a / W i n t e r 2 0 0 1
strengthening
Michael Mikhail
Assistant Professor, Accounting
Michael Mikhail, assistant professor of business administration,
came to Fuqua in July from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.
The opportunity to work with past colleagues and living
closer to his family were the two motivating factors that
brought Mikhail to Duke. He attended the University of
Chicago with fellow Fuqua faculty members, Richard Willis
and Qi Chen, and professor Katherine Schipper served as his
dissertation adviser at Chicago.
He earned his bachelor’s
degree in computer science
from the
University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign. He
then changed career
paths and received his
M.S. in accounting from
Illinois, and an MBA
and Ph.D from the
University of Chicago.
A certified public
accountant in Illinois,
Mikhail is an active
member of the
American Accounting
Association, American
Finance Association and American Institute of Certified
Public Accountants. He currently serves as an ad hoc reviewer
for the Journal of Accounting, Auditing and Finance, the
Journal of Accounting and Economics, the Journal of Accounting
Research and the Journal of Business.
At Fuqua, Mikhail teaches a core financial accounting
course and a tax elective course in The Duke MBA (daytime)
program. His primary teaching objective is to infuse in his
students the basic accounting principles, regardless of what
specialized field they eventually go into.
His research focus falls into two categories: learning how
different ownership structures affect how aggressive companies
are when it comes to tax management and exploring
the determinants of security analysts’ forecasting ability and
stock recommendation profitability.
His industry experience includes a senior consultant position
at Arthur Andersen & Co. and a programmer position at
IBM Corporation.