Ph.D. Students

Trambak is a PhD student in Statistics at USC Marshall School of Business. His research interests include high-dimensional statistical inference, large scale optimization techniques and computational statistics. He has previously served as a quantitative risk modeler in the financial services sector where he developed statistical models for estimating banking regulatory capital for Credit and Operational risk events.

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.

Gizem Ceylan-Hopper is a Ph.D. student in Marketing specializing in consumers’ judgment and decision making with a focus in attentional and motivational processes. Her research interest are mainly people’s motivational processes for future decisions regarding experiential purchases. In one line of research, she explores how visuals impact on people’s pre-experience decisions and their enjoyment during the experience. On a separate line of research, she studies how people’s motivational processes impact people’s risky decisions.

I am primarily interested in data-driven prediction, inference and decision-making in the context of online retail and consumer returns, sustainable operations, incentive design and worker productivity. In my research, I utilize tools from optimization, game theory, machine learning, high-dimensional statistics and econometrics. During my Ph.D. studies, I have co-authored three journal papers that have been published or accepted for publication in M&SOM and EJOR, and one more journal paper that is currently under 2nd round review at Management Science. Prior to my Ph.D. studies, I worked as a fraud risk manager with American Express, and as a credit risk analyst with HSBC.

Jennifer Lee is a Ph.D. student in Marketing specializing in consumer behavior research. Her research currently focuses on interpersonal relationships and product aesthetics. Prior to entering the program, Jennifer worked as a research analyst, helping guide marketing strategy for companies including the Los Angeles Times, Target, and General Mills.