Doctoral Committee

This page is targetted at Grad students at UC Berkeley and elsewhere. A good committee is the cornerstone of your PhD!

Committee members can access the Committee Pages to see my current schedule, recent work, and so forth.

Dissertation Committee

My dissertation committee at Berkeley was comprised of:

Michael Katz

Michael is the chair of my dissertation committee. He is a world-class economic theorist and his primary research area is the economics of innovation. I took two directed studies courses with Michael before I advanced to candidacy, and was proud to have him on my oral's committee.

I currently work with Michael on Models of Venture Capital and research related to Patents. Michael is my theory and innovation guru, though he provides input into every aspect of my work.

Toby Stuart

Toby is the co-chair of my dissertation committee and is currently visiting Berkeley from Harvard. Toby claims to be a sociologist (I'm pretty sure he's actually an economist), is a fantastic empiricist, and is one of the leading names in the entrepreneurship literature. I met Toby in a meeting with Silicon Valley Bank, and am glad to call him both a friend and a mentor.

I currently work with Toby on a project on VC Partners and another relating to Online Dating. Toby is my strategy and VC/entrepreneurship guru.

Christine Parlour

Christine is my finance field advisor. I met Christine when I took her Market Microstructure class. Christine is a superb contract theorist and brings her finance perspective to my work.

I have auditted or taken (for grade) the Discrete Time Asset Pricing, Macro Finance, Empirical Finance, Corporate Finance, and Market Microstructure courses offered at Berkeley, and Christine helps me to bring out the finance aspects of my research.

Suzanne Scotchmer

Suzanne is my 'outside' advisor. Suzanne holds Chairs in the Economics Department, The Goldman School of Public Policy, and the School of Law at UC Berkeley, and brings her unique blend of viewpoints to my work. I was delighted to have Suzanne as the outside member of my Oral's Committee and heartily recommend her book to other PhDs considering research on innovation and incentives.

Oral's Committee

Dave Mowery

Dave is an economic historian and is famous for his work on the effects of policy towards university-based innovation. Dave was the chair of my oral's committee, and is the supervisor of my colleague, friend and rival (and office-mate) Neil Thompson.

Steve Tadelis

Steve is (in-)famous amongst economics and business grad-students the world over as one the authors of the Solutions Manual for Mas-Colell, Whinston and Green. His research focuses on contract theory. I took both his contract theory class and a directed studies class on the theory of the firm with him. I also won the Earl F. Cheit Teaching award for GSI-ing MBA Microeconomics under him.

Other Mentors

Jim Brander

Jim is worshipped as a benevolent God in some parts of Canada, and I am one of his loyalest devotees. You can read about Jim on wikipedia (I didn't write that entry). Jim was my supervisor (i.e. committee chair) at the Sauder School of Business at UBC and is an economic polymath, equally superb in theory and empirics, and covering a range of topics from International Trade to Venture Capital.

Thomas Hellmann

Thomas is a clear leader in the field of entrepreneurial finance, and was my second supervisor at UBC. Thomas and I worked together on a number of highly data-intensive projects, and I took my first directed studies class in venture capital from him. I was delighted to attend his NBER Entrepreneurship Research Boot Camp in July 2011.

Bronwyn Hall

Bronwyn was one of the original reasons I applied to Berkeley. Bronwyn is now retired (she claims she retired more than five years ago), but her expertise in empricial analysis, particularly of patent data, is unrivalled. Bronwyn refered me to Iain Cockburn (at the NBER), and got me my job at the NBER Patent Data Project.