The A. B. Freeman School of Business is pleased to announce the appointment of five faculty members for the 2022–23 academic year. The appointments, which were effective July 1, include four tenure-track assistant professors and one professor of practice.
Abhishek Bhardwaj, Assistant Professor of Finance
Abhishek Bhardwaj joins the Freeman School after earning his PhD in finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business. He teaches financial management, and his research interests include financial intermediation, corporate finance and household finance. In his dissertation, Bhardwaj examines how securitization affects bank-lending relationships and the fragility of capital markets. Before pursuing his doctoral studies, Abhishek worked as a researcher at the Indian School of Business and as an analyst at Deutsche Bank. He holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Metallurgical
Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
Yumei He, Assistant Professor of Management Science
Prior to her appointment, Yumei He worked as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management and the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business. Her research interest lies in leveraging advanced IT artifacts to improve market efficiency of digital platforms, focusing on topics including digital interventions, human-AI collaboration and market design of platforms. Her work has been published in Information Systems Research and Journal of the Association for Information Systems. She teaches business analytics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and she also works as an external researcher for digital platforms and startups. She holds a PhD in Management of Information Systems from Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management.
Pradeep Muthukrishnan, Assistant Professor of Finance
Pradeep Muthukrishnan comes to the Freeman School from Cornell University, where he recently earned a PhD in finance. His research is in the field of empirical corporate finance with a focus on financial contracting and its applications in intermediation and labor markets. Prior to pursuing doctoral studies, Muthukrishnan worked at Deutsche Bank in credit derivatives trading. He holds a master’s degree in financial economics from the University of Oxford and a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
Amin Sabzehzar, Assistant Professor of Management Science
Amin Sabzehzar joins the Freeman School from Arizona State University, where he recently received his PhD in Management of Information Systems.
Sabzehzar teaches business analytics, and his research focuses on topics that speak to the management of social issues, take a broad developmental view of society, and have the potential to offer practical implications for online platform design and policy. His work has appeared in MIS Quarterly, Procedia Computer Science, and the proceedings of the International Conference on Information Systems and the Americas Conference on Information Systems.
Cathy Gray, Professor of Practice in Accounting
Cathy Gray spent the first 18 years of her career as a CPA in Nashville, where she gained experience in public accounting, insurance regulation and business management in the city’s flourishing music and entertainment industry. She comes to the Freeman School from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, where she served as a lecturer of accounting and finance. Gray holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Patterson School of Accountancy at the University of Mississippi and is currently pursuing a PhD in Business Analytics at the University of South Alabama.
“Exceptional teaching and innovative research are at the center of everything we do, so I’m excited to welcome these outstanding young scholars to our faculty,” said Paulo Goes, dean of the Freeman School. “I look forward to following their careers and sharing in the achievements.”
