Discipline of Finance

Dr Amir Armanious is a subject coordinator and lecturer in finance at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Business School, with around two decades of academic experience spanning undergraduate, Master’s, MBA, and PhD programs. He has taught at local, regional, and international universities, bringing a wealth of cross-cultural and interdisciplinary teaching expertise.

Dr Armanious holds two PhDs in Applied Finance and Financial Economics, complemented by three Master’s degrees in Finance, Economics, and Strategic Planning, as well as three graduate certificates. His extensive academic qualifications underpin his research and teaching excellence.

Dr Armanious is a researcher in financial literacy, financial abuse, and financial fraud, integrating academic scholarship with industry practice. He played a central role in designing and coordinating the subject 25400 Financial Literacy. He contributes to the Financial Inclusion Action Plan (FIAP) and develops tailored financial literacy modules to enhance the knowledge and employability of UTS students.

His research adopts an interdisciplinary and impact-oriented approach, extending to entrepreneurship, responsible innovation, education, social impact, and future-focused teaching. He is particularly engaged in advancing student engagement, Generative AI applications in higher education, and assessment design, with an emphasis on preparing students for lifelong learning and leadership.

Dr Armanious has made significant contributions to student transition and success as the First and Further Year Experience (FFYE) Student Transition Coordinator, where he supports both students and staff and coordinates FFYE Forums. His impact has been recognised through prestigious awards, including:

• Runner-up for the Best Educator Award at the 2026 Money Awareness and Inclusion Awards (MAIAs).
• UTS Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Excellence Award in 2025.
• UTS Business School Achievement Award for Education and Student Experience in 2024.
• UTS Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Excellence Award in 2018.
• 2017 SIBT Learning and Teaching Excellence Award.
• Top Teaching awards for 2024, 2019, and 2018.

As a committed higher education leader, Dr Armanious is a Senior Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) and serves as a mentor and reviewer within the UTS Educational Fellowship Program (EFP), supporting colleagues in achieving Advance HE recognition in fellowship and senior fellowship categories. He also contributes through committee service, including the Finance Department Education Committee and External Engagement and Student Engagement initiatives, as well as collaborations with UTS Startups.

Dr Armanious is the Academic Engagement Coordinator at the Centre for Business Intelligence and Data Analytics (BIDA). He also serves as Associate Editor of the Advances in Economics Education journal, regularly reviews for international journals, and coordinates academic conferences, shaping the next generation of researchers and industry leaders. He is a frequent keynote speaker at international conferences, workshops, and symposiums.

As a doctoral supervisor, Dr Armanious plays a vital role in mentoring and guiding emerging scholars, fostering the development of future industry leaders and researchers, and contributing to the advancement of knowledge and practice in finance and entrepreneurship.

In addition to his academic career, Dr Armanious has extensive professional experience as a financial consultant for the United Nations, government institutions, multinational corporations, and startups, bridging academic research with practical global impact.

Lorenzo Casavecchia is Associate Professor of Finance and Associate Head (Industry Engagement) at the UTS Business School. His research in funds management, liquidity risk and financial regulation bridges theory and practice, informing policy at international regulatory bodies and shaping reform initiatives in Australia. Backed by multiple HERDC Category 3 industry-funded grants, his work explores systemic and liquidity risk, performance evaluation and attribution, and fee policies in investment funds—offering practical insights for institutional investors and data-driven guidance for policymakers.

His research has received multiple Best Paper awards and has been featured in the Financial Times, Australian Associated Press, Australian Financial Review, and The Australian. He is frequently called as an academic expert witness, having testified in financial arbitrations, class actions, and Supreme Court proceedings.

In education, Lorenzo leads innovative, industry-embedded programs. He coordinates the UTS Student Managed Fund and oversees the Anchor Investment Fund—a flagship undergraduate subject co-designed and co-delivered with investment professionals from firms including BlackRock, Coolabah Capital Investments, Rest, Blackwattle, and SSgA. The Fund has been a transformative experience for students, many of whom have gone on to secure competitive roles at leading financial institutions. His teaching has been recognised with multiple awards including Top Teaching and Top Subject citations, the UTS Business School Productive Partnerships Award, and a national nomination for Outstanding Industry Engagement for Student Learning.

Lorenzo holds a PhD from UTS and a BSc (Honours) from Bocconi University. He has completed executive programs in Artificial Intelligence at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and CSAIL, and in Financial Engineering and Risk Management at Columbia University. Prior to entering academia, he worked as a quantitative analyst and corporate bond trader.

Ester is a Senior Lecturer of Finance at the University of Technology Sydney since July 2019, and a Research Fellow (seconded) at the Digital Finance Co-operative Research Centre (DFCRC) since 2023, where she works at the intersection of academia, industry, and government on the future of digital and decentralised finance (DeFi).

Ester is also the course director and coordinator of the Digital Finance major of the MBA, where she has led the development and launch of Australia’s first postgraduate program dedicated to this emerging field, building connections with industry partners through the DFCRC.

Her research interests centre on financial markets: market design and "market microstructure",  Digital Finance including DeFi and decentralised markets, and forensic finance including market manipulation, insider trading, and fraud. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals including the Journal of Finance, the Financial Review and the Journal of Accounting & Finance and her research on Insider Trading in Cryptocurrency Markets has been featured by global media outlets including Bloomberg. Ester has also held visiting positions at the Fisher College of Business - the Ohio State University, in USA, the Stockholm Business School in Sweden, and at the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden.

Ester is an effective educator who has consistently earned strong recognition for her teaching in postgraduate subjects related to digital finance, financial management and capital markets, with SFS scores consistently above targets. 

Ester is committed to academic service and leadership within the university and the broader research community. She currently serves as a member of the Recruitment Committee and of the Research Committee in the Finance discipline group. She is also the chair and principal organiser of the Market Microstructure and Digital Finance Conference since 2023, an international conference co-hosted by the DFCRC, FIRN and UTS.

Ester has also won honours and awards for her research in various conferences, and within the UTS Business School as recognition for her work developing and co-creating the Business School's mentoring program for female Early Career Researchers (2023 UTS Leadership award). Her work is also supported by competitive grants from the UTS Business School (2022 UTS Business Research Grant Scheme) and the DFCRC (2023 - present: i) DFCRC Secondment for Research fellowship and ii) DFCRC scholarships for industry PhD students at UTS) and her excellence in teaching by i) the Top Subject Postgraduate Award (Spring 2022) and ii) Top Teaching Award (2022).

Kristoffer is an experienced cross-disciplinary researcher at the intersection of finance, statistics, and mathematics. He is dedicated to developing novel analytical tools that address critical questions about financial markets and that contribute to positive societal impact. His research interests span the areas of financial economics, dynamic corporate finance, derivative pricing, and quantitative portfolio management and his research has been published in many leading finance and mathematics journals. 

Kristoffer is a CFA charterholder (Chartered Financial Analyst designation) and member of CFA Institute and CFA Societies Australia. He is also a certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM). In the UTS Business School, Kristoffer currently serves as the PhD Coordinator for the Finance Department, the CFA University Affiliation Program Director, and the CAIA Academic Partnership Director for the UTS Business School.

The focus of Gerhard's career is on educating and influencing the finance profession to procure the effective integration of ethics within it. Gerhard's teaching excellence has been recognised through student feedback and through university and government prizes and awards. His research aims to raise awareness for pertinent ethical and social justice issues (eg insider trading; gender equity on corporate boards). Following the successful delivery of the Finance department's external engagement strategy, as Deputy Associate Dean (International Engagement) he now supports the university through overseas engagement activities for UTS International.

Gerhard’s research focuses on solutions to problems caused by unethical conduct in the finance industry, and the broader impact of human behaviour in capital market settings. His ethics research raises awareness for finance related ethical and social justice issues, and his finance research fosters increased understanding of the way that human behaviour can influence investment outcomes.

Publications include: studies on gender equity on corporate boards (Applied Network Science), consideration of the impact of ‘perceptions’ of wrongdoing in respect of different types of insider trading (Journal of Investing), analysis of the relative efficacy of ethics electives in contrast to mandatory ethics education (Journal of Financial Education), research on the impact of analyst forecast errors on fundamental indexation (Journal of Asset Management), momentum in sovereign bonds (Journal of Fixed Income), and leveraged investments and agency conflicts (Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control).

Gerhard is a highly engaging speaker and a top-tier UTS teacher. His excellence in teaching has been recognised through several prestigious teaching awards and prizes, including from the Australian government, the university and the business faculty.

As Deputy Associate Dean (International Engagement), Gerhard supports current and potential international students and related stakeholders. This includes facilitation of finance-related exchange program applications and consideration of potential prior learning recognition. Gerhard also works with partner organisations at UTS and overseas to help potential students identify suitable UTS study opportunities through workshops and presentations.

Prior to his work for UTS International, as Associate Head (External Engagement), Gerhard managed industry engagement for the UTS finance faculty transforming external engagement into a significant vehicle for stakeholder interaction, knowledge dispersion and reputation building. Core activities included strategy development, relationship building, honorary network management, and development of a highly successful series of industry engagement events.

Gerhard is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD), CFA charterholder (Chartered Financial Analyst designation) and member of CFA Institute, CFA Societies Australia and the Australian Institute of Company Directors. As a member of the Advocacy Council of CFA Societies Australia & New Zealand he supports the development of financial reform related submissions to Australian Government departments such as the Treasury and Australian Securities & Investments Commission. 

Before joining the UTS Business School, Gerhard completed his PhD at the University of Wyoming (USA). Gerhard also holds an MBA from the University of Wyoming (USA), and Master degrees from the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany) and the EM Strasbourg Business School (France). His financial industry experience includes supporting a large funds-of-funds private equity portfolio managed in Frankfurt (Germany) and a middle-market buyout fund managed in Chicago, IL (USA).

William is a PhD student within the Economics Department at UTS Business School. At UTS he is conducting research into topics regarding family, conflict, health, and gender issues within a developing economy setting. His first paper at UTS explores the effects of armed conflict during the 1996-2006 Nepali Civil War on the age at marriage for women. This particular work is valuable given the prevalence of underage marriage in such a setting, and the ongoing pervasive of conflicts across the developing world. His results find that conflict delays the age at marriage, but also shifts the amount of schooling received by girls in a heterogenous manner dependent on caste. William's second paper at UTS assess the effects of an ongoing medical intervention in Zambia, aimed at HIV prevention, assessing men's subsequent sexual post-intervention, and finding evidence of risk compensation. William is supervised by Prof. Adeline Delavande.
 
William is also tutoring for Strategic Decision Making and Game Theory, as well as Economics of the Environment, and he is also the student representative to the HDR faculty committee, and student committee.

Professor Michayluk obtained his Ph.D. at Louisiana State University for his work on intraday price formation and equity bid-ask spread components. He previously worked at the University of Rhode Island and at the University of New South Wales. He holds a CA and CPA designation and has worked at Deloittes and PWC before embarking on an academic career where he has also consulted for a number of businesses. He was Head of the Finance Department for eight years (2017-2025).  

Christina Nikitopoulos is an experienced researcher in energy finance, renewable energy, sustainable finance, commodity markets and interest rate modelling.

Christina’s research projects develop mathematical frameworks and conduct empirical studies to analyse the dynamics of prices and volatilities in crude oil, gold, electricity and energy markets. Her research has addressed important aspects and issues associated with commodity/energy markets, such as the financialization of commodity markets, the return-volatility relation in commodity markets, the pricing and hedging of commodity derivatives and the economic determinants of oil futures markets volatility.

She leads several projects addressing the impact of renewable energy generation on electricity price dynamics that aim to inform the debates regarding the system’s security and reliability, and to provide context on the notion of a renewable-led energy transition. This research informs policy makers, governments, electricity generation developers and consumer groups.

Her research portfolio also includes sustainable finance projects addressing the challenges of fossil fuel divesting and the evaluation of the premium in green bond markets. This research assesses the risk and return characteristics of fossil fuels and renewables, and investigates realistic portfolio construction strategies to inform the optimal method of reduction in carbon exposure. Further, her projects identify and gauge effects of attribute associations of green bond yield spreads offering screening mechanisms to facilitate decision making for investors, issuers and policy makers.  

Christina is included as an expert in Funding and Financial Services at the CSIRO Enabling Resilience Investment Panel. She is a member of several research associations and centres including the Centre of Climate Risk and Resilience (CCRR), Centre for Business and Sustainable Development (CBSD), Financial Research Network (FIRN), and the Australian Accounting & Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand (AFAANZ). 

Internationally, she is a member of the Commodity and Energy Markets Association (CEMA), the Academic Female Finance Committee (AFFECT), and the International Association of Energy Economics (IAEE).

Christina has been awarded two ARC grants; one on modelling and estimation of volatility in energy markets (2010-2013) and one on risk assessment of climate change measures (2013-2017). She has recently been awarded a UTS Collaborative Scheme grant (2025) on Next-Gen AI platform to enable smart home electrification, and the UTS Strategic Research Accelerator (SRA) grant (2024-2025) on developing a decision-making and benchmarking tool to assist corporations achieving their net-zero goals. Other grants incude a Dean's Strategic Fund Collaboration and Networking grant (2023), a CBSD Research Partnership grant (2023-2024) on green bonds.

Christina publishes in leading finance journals including the Journal of Banking & Finance, Energy Economics, Quantitative Finance, Applied Mathematical Finance and The Journal of Futures Markets.

Deniz Okat earned his PhD from Aalto University. Before joining UTS, he was as an Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, where he received awards for his teaching excellence. His research interests include corporate finance, information economics, and political economy. He has published in leading journals including Journal of Economic Theory, Management Science, and RAND Journal of Economics. Prior to his academic career, Deniz worked in the banking industry, initially as an onsite auditor for the government and later assumed an executive role in a commercial bank.

I am a lecturer in the finance department at the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. My research interest includes corporate philanthropy, climate finance, fund management, and nonprofits.

Raphael's papers are published in Review of Finance, Journal of Banking & Finance, Journal of Financial Markets, and others. His papers also received several best paper awards including Southwestern Finance Association Annual Meeting, New Zealand Finance Meeting, CAFM, Asia Conference on Business and Economic Studies, Sustainability, Conference on Behavioral Research in Finance, Governance and Accounting and travel grants from KDI Frontiers in Development Policy Conference.

Raphael's work has been also presented at major finance conferences such as American Finance Association,  SFS Cavalcade North America, and European Finance Association. 

His current research projects focus on the interplay between environmental regulations and firm pollution, and their impact on shareholder wealth and corporate philanthropy.

Vinay Patel is an Associate Professor of Finance and the Undergraduate Director at the University of Technology Sydney. 

Vinay's research focuses on market microstructure and digital finance, in particular, on detecting illegal trading and fraud in financial markets and the digitization of assets. Vinay's work is published in top-tier international journals including The Journal of Finance, Management Science, Review of Finance, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Journal of Banking & Finance, Journal of Financial Markets, and also featured in the Financial Times, Bloomberg, Yahoo and the Australian Financial Review. 

Vinay is a consultant for the US Securities and Exchange Commision (SEC), UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Digital Finance Cooperative Research Centre (DFCRC); the Associate Editor of the Journal of Accounting Literature; Adjunct Professor at VinUniversity; Adjunct Professor at the Indian Institute of Madras; organizing chair of the FIRN microstructure and digitial finance meeting and visiting scholar at Bayes Business School.

Vinay is an award winning educator and very passionate about helping students learn and develop a career in the Finance profession. Vinay has supervised numerous PhD and Honours students who successfully obtained employment at top industry and academic institutions.

Vinay holds a Ph.D and first class Honours degree with the University Medal in Finance. 

Dr. Kenny Phua is a Senior Lecturer of Finance at the UTS Business School and an Affiliated Researcher with the Digital Finance CRC. He earned his Ph.D. in Finance from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore before joining UTS in 2019.

Kenny’s current research agenda focuses on topics related to forensic finance, with a keen interest in understanding the economics of consumer fraud. His most recent working papers explore the economics of financial scams and privacy costs in the digital economy. His research has been published in journals, including the Journal of Financial Economics and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. His work has also featured in the Harvard Business Review, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Business Insider, and on 2SER Radio.

His research has been presented at the annual meetings of the American Finance Association (AFA), the European Finance Association (EFA), and the Midwest Finance Association (MFA), as well as the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research (ABFER) annual conference and the China International Conference in Finance (CICF). Kenny has won honours and awards for his research in various conferences and within the UTS Business School. His work is also supported by competitive grants from the UTS Business School and the Singapore Ministry of Education.

Kenny is an effective educator who has consistently earned strong recognition for his teaching in subjects related to corporate finance, asset pricing, and applied case methods across both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. He also delivers high-quality, cross-cultural undergraduate education through the UTS-SILC joint degree program in Shanghai, China.

Kenny is committed to academic service and leadership within the university and the broader research community. He currently serves as Chair of the Recruitment Committee in the Finance department and has previously convened the Finance Seminar Series. He has refereed for leading finance journals, such as the Review of Financial Studies, the Review of Finance, and Management Science. His approach to service is shaped by a strong sense of responsibility, developed during his time as a Lieutenant in the 1st Commando Battalion of the Singapore Armed Forces.

Talis Putnins is a Professor of Finance at UTS, Co-CEO & Chief Scientist of the Digital Finance Co-operative Research Centre (DFCRC), and a member of the Business Intelligence and Data Analytics Research Centre. He has also held faculty and visiting positions at the University of Edinburgh, the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, Columbia University, and New York University. 

His research interests centre on financial markets: (i) market design and "market microstructure", (ii) Digital Finance including DeFi and decentralised markets, and (iii) forensic finance including market manipulation, insider trading, and fraud. His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals including the Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and Review of Finance. 

Talis is the recipient of competitive research grants from the Australian Research Council (ARC) including a Discovery Award and a DECRA. Talis regularly serves as a policy advisor and consultant to governments, stock exchanges, financial institutions, and DeFi projects, and an expert witness in legal cases.

Dr Kylie-Anne Richards holds a full-time role as Head of Investment Research at the Future Fund, Australia's Sovereign Wealth Fund, where she leads research with direct portfolio impact across portfolio design and asset class teams. She also holds a tenured academic position as Senior Lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), where she develops and teaches sustainable finance subjects across the MBA, Master of Finance, and Executive MBA programs, alongside research in applied econometrics and advanced quantitative methods. With over 20 years of domestic and international investment experience and deep cross-asset class expertise, her prior roles include Deputy Chief Investment Officer at a fixed income asset manager and Head of Financial Engineering for Asia Pacific at Macquarie Group (based in Hong Kong). 

Her current research examines the market structure of carbon and digital-asset markets — including price discovery and credibility in voluntary and tokenised carbon markets, and reserve composition and regulation across the emerging stablecoin regime — alongside continuing work in computational finance, high-frequency data, and time-series econometrics, building on an earlier body of research in sustainable finance and the energy transition. She has published in leading journals including Energy Economics, Annals of Actuarial Science, Global Finance Journal, International Journal of Data Science and Analytics, International Journal of Financial Engineering, and Statistical Inference for Stochastic Processes, and regularly presents at academic and industry conferences. Her work bridges academia and investment practice, with a focus on data-driven approaches to long-term investment challenges.

Dr Richards frequently appears in media and industry forums discussing topics such as fixed income markets, transition risk, and the role of AI in financial decision-making. She has been featured in Bloomberg Green, FS Sustainability, InvestorDaily, The Conversation, KangaNews, and AusBiz.

She holds a PhD in Mathematics and Statistics from UNSW, a Master of Finance (Financial Engineering) from the University of Hong Kong, and undergraduate degrees in Mathematics, Statistics, and Finance from the University of Melbourne.

Alessandro is a Lecturer in Finance at the University of Technology Sydney since September 2024. He completed his PhD in finance at Copenhagen Business School, in Denmark prior to joining UTS. His research interests include several aspects of financial markets, such as financial intermediation, macrofinance and monetary policy.

Associate Professor Gerhard Van de Venter, PhD, CFA, began his career in South Africa as a financial analyst in the agricultural sector before moving to the Bond Exchange as a fixed income and derivatives dealer. Over the past 30 years, he has built a distinguished academic career spanning finance, investments, and ethics, and has authored numerous books and papers across these fields. Prior to his current role, he served as Director of Curriculum Projects in the Education Division at CFA Institute. Gerhard holds a PhD in Finance from the University of Technology Sydney.

Kathy Walsh is a Professor of Finance at the UTS Business School. Her research examines questions of equity and influence across multiple levels of the financial system. Her earlier work considered corporate governance, risk and market behaviour, including pioneering reports on the evolving role of the Renminbi (RMB) and its implications for international financial markets. Building on this foundation, her more recent work focuses on financial literacy, financial abuse and gender equity, exploring how behavioural biases and structural factors contribute to vulnerability.

Kathy holds a PhD in Finance from the Australian Graduate School of Management and a first-class Honours degree in Finance from Curtin University. Her academic career spans 30 years, during which she has held positions at ANU, the University of Sydney and UNSW. She has also served as Research Director at the Centre for International Finance and Regulation and as President of FIRN. Prior to academia, Kathy worked for ten years in the financial services sector, experience that continues to inform her research, industry engagement and policy contributions.