Ph.D. Students

Katherine Bruere is a Ph.D. student in the Leventhal School of Accounting. She is interested in empirical financial research, specifically capital markets, earnings management, and disclosure. Prior to starting the Ph.D. program, Katherine worked at Ernst & Young as an auditor in Dallas’ Financial Services division, as well as an accountant at Merit Energy. Katherine earned a BA and an MA in Accounting at Baylor University (2014) and is a licensed CPA in the state of Texas.

My research focuses on empirical corporate finance. My current projects involve corporate governance, executive compensation, and information disclosure.

Gizem Ceylan is a Ph.D. student in Marketing specializing in consumer behavior in technology-mediated environments, visual word-of-mouth, and psychology of social media. In one line of research, she explores how people express their experiences at the interplay of visual and textual information. She specifically examines whether photos indeed are worth a thousand words. On a separate line of research, she studies how people’s motivational processes (such as self presentational goals) may impact the spread of misinformation on online networks. She uses variety of methods (meta-analysis, text analysis using both dictionary and computational methods) to study these topics.

AJ Chen is a Ph.D. candidate in Accounting at the USC Leventhal School of Accounting, Marshall School of Business. Prior to joining the Ph.D. Program, he worked as an associate in the investment banking industry, as well as analyst in commodities trading. He also had experience as tax associate at PwC Boston.