How would you finish the following sentence: being a professor at Trinity means… 

Students are part of your life, and you are part of students’ lives. Students are not a group of subjects to whom you merely deliver a series of lectures. You learn so much about their passions, their hobbies, and their engagement with the world. You know them as individuals who live vividly. Teaching is not merely a day job. Thinking about how to best support your students becomes an integrated part of your life. Similarly, to many students, their professors are their trusted friends with whom they develop and maintain meaningful, long-lasting relationships.

As the chair of the Finance and Business Analytics department here at Trinity, what is a common misconception about the field of Finance and what is a surprising thing that folks may not know about the academic study of Finance?

A common misconception is that Finance is all about numbers and quantitative skills. Qualitative analysis and skills are equally, if not more, important. The field of Finance has a lot to do with strategy, visioning, decision-making, understanding human behavior and psychology, being able to communicate, and being able to influence and inspire. Many jobs in Finance rely heavily on interpersonal skills and relationship building, in which Trinity students have a unique advantage. A surprising thing that folks may not know about the academic study of Finance is that it works well with many different majors if you plan to double major. Accounting and Finance complement each other well, and they open up doors for many careers in corporate finance and banking. Economics and Finance also complement each other really well, and they are a great combination for students who are interested in policy making and public finance. Business Analytics and Finance are also a great double-major choice for students who are interested in the space of fintech.

In your scholarship, you have co-written many articles with Trinity faculty such as fellow faculty spotlight, Amy Holmes, and faculty from other educational institutions. What has inspired you to collaborate with others in your scholarship and how has this collaboration influenced your work?

I enjoy collaborating with colleagues outside my discipline, particularly on pedagogical research. It is quite inspiring oftentimes to look at innovative pedagogies in other disciplines, and I love thinking about how they can be implemented in business curricula and evaluating their impact on students' learning.

In addition to being the chair of the Finance and Business Analytics department, you also lead Trinity’s study abroad program in Shanghai and have taught a First-Year Experience (FYE) course called Being Young in Asia. What have these experiences of interacting with students in contexts outside of your department taught you about being an educator and do you have other experiences that you’d like to participate in in the future?

I absolutely enjoyed teaching FYE and I wish I can do it again! The two times I taught FYE were during my first couple of years at Trinity, and the topic I taught was Being Young in Asia. I want to say teaching FYE was one of the few moments that had a defining impact on my development as an educator. Working closely and co-teaching with some of the best professors Trinity has ever had was a tremendous learning opportunity for me.  Most of the topics we taught in that class were outside my knowledge domain. It was a joy to explore those topics together with my students. I think the core of my teaching philosophy is to encourage curiosity and self-exploration, and enjoy the process of lifelong learning.  In the FYE class, my students and I took on a journey together to venture into new territories, embrace the unfamiliarity, and be curious and excited about learning new things.

I have led the Shanghai Study Abroad program twice in the past, and this year, I am super excited to go to Shanghai again with a group of students and Dr. Yi Liu, another faculty from the Neidorff School of Business. I was an international student coming to study in the U.S. 20 years ago. My study abroad experience impacted me in more ways than I can imagine and ultimately changed my life trajectory. I encourage every student to study abroad, even for a short period, to see how people live and how things work outside of the settings and systems they are familiar with and to experience the culture and history that human beings created collectively.