DBA Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Tim Simin
Some of the best and brightest minds in business call Smeal their professional home. Our faculty's contributions to teaching and research are heard around the world. And their commitment to partnering with our students is seen, heard, and experienced in our classrooms and beyond.
Here, we introduce you to Dr. Tim Simin, Smeal Research Fellow and Professor in Finance
What DBA course(s) are you teaching?
BA 511: Seminar on Statistical Analysis
What are you excited to cover/explore and why?
I am excited to explore the different ways researchers across disciplines hear in the B-school test theories and models. I love watching students' “lightbulb” come on when explaining statistical testing. Statistical testing is the backbone of empirical research. The tools we learn will be useful for the rest of each students career.
What are some of your main goals/expectations as a professor to DBA students?
Given that my minor in my doctoral program was Statistics, I am looking forward to providing at least some of the tools a researcher might use when writing a research paper. My goal is to have all the students able to read a research paper in their field and understand how to execute and interpret the testing procedure used in the paper.
How would you summarize your research expertise?
I am a quantitative “conditional asset-pricer.” In English, this means that my research tends to focus on how financial asset prices are set by the market, conditional on what is going on in the rest of the economy. Some of my research is concerned with how investors learn about the value of a firm and the riskiness of the firm, and other parts of my research deal with how mutual and hedge funds respond to changes in investor attitudes about the economy.
Why is it important to you?
Understanding how prices of financial assets are set by the market is important for predicting winners and losers. Understanding what information and how it is used by investors is important to hedge/mutual fund management. My research helps to determine why firms earn different expected returns and how those returns are related to the risk faced by an investor.
How would you describe your research approach?
Quantitative. My approach is often to test the theory of someone else. Often, authors will write a research paper that is only theory with little real-world input. As an empiricist, I get to test and either support or reject theory.
What was the most helpful advice you’ve received from a professor/manager that still holds true?
Get a mentor. Doing research and writing research papers is hard and there are many subtleties that a seasoned researcher will know that might not be obvious to a new researcher. Teaching (good teaching anyway) is hard. A mentor will be able to give advice on presentation methods and style as well as help a new teacher deal with the myriad of interpersonal issues that occur in every classroom. While teaching and research are both hard, they are also fun. A good mentor can help a rookie see the impact teachers have on students and the importance of their research.
Tell us an interesting fact about you and/or your interests outside of teaching.
I am an avid woodworker. I build cabinets, cutting boards, kid’s toys at Christmas, filing cabinets, and pretty much anything that my wife asks me to make. I love the challenge of new projects and the sense of achievement that comes when looking at a finished project.