Team | Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy

The Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy at Georgetown McDonough is a top destination for financial policy analysts and researchers. Guided by Professor Reena Aggarwal, the Center provides thought leadership for global finance, convening academics, policymakers, regulators, industry leaders, students, and institutional decision makers from its home in Washington D.C. The Psaros Center is an intellectual honest broker, facilitator, and educator that serves as the intersection between practitioners and policymakers – fostering discussion and debate on global finance and its role in broader societal problems.

Our Team

Reena Aggarwal

Founding Director
Robert E. McDonough Professor of Business Administration and Finance

Dr. Aggarwal specializes in financial markets; market regulation; short term funding markets; IPOs; capital raising; ETFs; corporate governance including proxy voting, executive compensation, and director elections; role of institutional investors; ESG attributes of firms; and FinTech, digital assets, and Central Bank Digital Currencies. She has had tremendous impact at the intersection of financial markets and policy globally. She has served in several leadership roles including Vice Provost for Faculty for Georgetown’s Main Campus, Interim Dean, and Deputy Dean of the McDonough School of Business. Furthermore, she has been a Visiting Professor of Finance at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, a FINRA Academic Fellow, an Academic Fellow at the U.S. SEC, and a Visiting Research Scholar at the IMF, World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Financing and Capital; Fulbright Scholar to Brazil; and Distinguished Scholar at the Reserve Bank of India’s CAFRAL. Her research and analysis are regularly cited in Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, CNBC, and CNN, among others.

She is an award-winning teacher and has been voted as the Outstanding Professor by EMBA students; named among “Outstanding Faculty” in the Business Week Guide to the Best Business Schools; and described as the Favorite Professors of the ‘Best & Brightest’ Executive MBAs, Poets and Quants. She was honored with the Allan N. Nash Distinguished Doctoral Graduate Award by University of Maryland, and the Distinguished Alumnus Award by BITS Pilani.

Learn more about Dr. Aggarwal

David Vandivier

Executive Director

David Vandivier brings over two decades of experience at the highest levels of financial policy to the new role, including in the White House, U.S. Treasury Department, U.S. Senate, and, most recently, BNY Mellon, where he was co-head of government affairs. Before joining BNY Mellon in 2015, Vandivier was senior advisor to the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service and chief of staff at the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama White House. Previously, he was deputy assistant secretary for budget and tax at the U.S. Treasury Department and director of strategic planning and outreach on the U.S. Senate Budget Committee. He holds an M.Sc. from the London School of Economics and a B.A. from Franklin College of Indiana.

Lee Pinkowitz

Associate Director of Student Engagement
Associate Professor of Finance

Lee Pinkowitz is an associate professor of finance at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. Professor Pinkowitz arrived at Georgetown in 1999 after receiving his PhD from The Ohio State University. Professor Pinkowitz is an award-winning researcher in the areas of corporate cash holdings and corporate governance. His research has been published in top finance journals and is widely cited. Along with co-authors, he has won the Jensen Prize for best paper published in the Journal of Financial Economics and the William F. Sharpe Award for Scholarship in Financial Research, for the best paper published in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. Professor Pinkowitz has won the annual MBA Distinguished Teaching Award four times and the Joseph F. LeMoine Award for Undergraduate and Graduate Teaching Excellence twice.

Claire Liang

Associate Director
Associate Teaching Professor of Finance

Claire Liang is an associate teaching professor of finance at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. Liang’s research focuses on issues in empirical asset pricing and corporate finance, especially regarding uncertainty and its impact on asset prices, finance and growth, and entrepreneurial finance. She has widely published scholarly articles and has seven years of investment banking experience with Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. She earned a PhD in finance from the University of Alberta in Canada, an MBA with a finance concentration and a PhD in materials science and engineering from Cornell University, and a B.S. in Physics from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. Prior to joining Georgetown, Liang taught at the University of Maine and Southern Illinois University and received the Cherry-Hill Business Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award from SIU (2019). She enjoys sharing her industry experience with students and advising students on finance career-related issues.

Andrew Devine

Program Coordinator

Andrew Devine is the program coordinator for the Psaros Center assisting in the day-to-day operation of the center. Before joining the Psaros Center, he worked as an intern for a government relations firm on Capitol Hill. Devine graduated from the College of the Holy Cross in 2022 with a B.A. in Economics.

Téa Anderson

Marketing and Communications Coordinator

Téa Anderson graduated from the University of Texas at Austin where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Radio-Television-Film and a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies with a minor in history. As an undergraduate, she was involved on-campus as a teaching assistant, leadership education staff, and served as a representative on behalf of the communications college. Most recently, she interned in Spain as a production assistant for a boutique music label. Fueled by a passion for storytelling, she works to help others share their ideas using impactful and innovative methods.

Visiting Fellows

Frank Hatheway

Fellow

Frank Hatheway served as chief economist for Nasdaq and led the Economics and Statistical Research Department. His team was responsible for a variety of projects and initiatives in the United States and Europe to improve market structure, encourage capital formation, and enhance trading efficiency. A regular participant in industry events for both issuers and traders, he has appeared before the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Congress to discuss a variety of issues around the equities and derivatives markets. His research work includes identifying the causes of the May 6, 2010, market break, evaluating enhancements for the markets, and exploring the implications of proposed exchange mergers. Prior to joining Nasdaq, he was a finance professor at Penn State University and a researcher in market microstructure. He has authored academic articles in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Intermediation, and other leading finance journals. He has served as an economic fellow and senior research scholar with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, worked as a derivatives trader, and earned his PhD in economics from Princeton University.

Manmohan Kumar

Fellow

Manmohan Kumar serves as Senior Vice President for the Caisse de dépot et placement du Québec, a global investment group. Previously, Kumar held senior leadership positions, including Assistant Director for the Finance Department as well as the Fiscal Affairs Department, at the International Monetary Fund. At Credit Suisse, he worked as the Strategy Director for Global Emerging Markets. His academic background includes a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Cambridge, where he also was a fellow and lecturer.

Marshall Lux

Fellow

Marshall Lux has been a financial services consultant and practitioner for over 30 years and advises a number of companies, including those focused on consumer credit provision, wealth management, insurance, and cybersecurity. He has performed due diligence for many of the largest private equity deals and has worked with a broad network of financial services C-suite executives. Lux began his career at McKinsey & Company where he served financial services firms across a variety of subsectors and functional areas. He eventually led McKinsey’s private equity practice, leaving McKinsey after approximately 25 years to become the chief risk officer for Chase (all consumer products globally) during the 2008 financial crisis. He then joined the Boston Consulting Group, where he was a senior partner for five years and helped build a private equity practice while serving financial institutions. Along with his client work, Lux has done dozens of pro bono assignments and served on a number of not-for-profit boards. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Lux received his MBA from Harvard Business School and graduated summa cum laude from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

Ernie Tedeschi

Fellow

Ernie Tedeschi a Visiting Fellow at the Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy at Georgetown University. He is also the Director of Economics at the Yale Budget Lab. Until March 2024, Ernie was the Chief Economist at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Prior to CEA, he was Managing Director and Head of Fiscal Analysis at Evercore ISI, a macro advisory firm. He was also previously an economist at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Ernie completed his undergraduate studies at Stanford University and graduate work at the University of California at Berkeley.

Student Assistants

Hailey Walker

Student Assistant

Hailey Walker is a sophomore at Georgetown University in the McDonough School of Business, majoring in Finance and Accounting with a Global Business Fellowship. She is originally from Cleveland, OH, where she has interned in Transaction Advisory Services and Corporate Finance. In addition to being a Student Assistant and FinPolicy Scholar at the Psaros Center, she is the Vice President of the Technology Industry Group in the Georgetown University Student Investment Fund, a Coordinator for the Business Undergraduates Invested in Leadership Development (BUILD) program, and a member of the Georgetown University Dance Company.

Kelly Grace Richardson

Student Assistant

Hailing from Seattle, Kelly Grace Richardson is a junior at Georgetown University where she is double majoring in Management and Finance, minoring in Government, and serves as a coxswain on the D1 men’s lightweight rowing team. She worked as a research assistant for a book on global digitalization and assisted Gerry George, Arun Gupta, and Thomas Fewer on Mission Meets Venture, published in 2024. Kelly Grace’s passion for technology, media, and defense is crystal clear as she explores the intersection of these spaces with finance. She is a founding member of Georgetown Student Capital Partners, Georgetown’s first undergraduate private equity and venture capital club. Through the organization, she led a team of analysts for Lavrock Ventures and was the Director of VC where she was in charge of clients and the club’s first VC fund. She previously worked for Mantis where she assisted with their high-profile companies in crypto/blockchain and fintech and has interned at Anthemis Group, a global fintech VC firm, since May 2022. Kelly Grace was an investment intern at Redcar Properties in Summer 2023 and will be an investment banking intern at Moelis & Company in New York in Summer 2024. Outside of work, Kelly Grace loves to bake cookies and sample caffeinated drinks!

Pavlos Tentomas

Student Assistant

Pavlos Tentomas is a sophomore at Georgetown University in the McDonough School of Business, majoring in Finance and Accounting with a keen interest in private equity and M&A. He is from Montreal, Canada, originally Greek, and can speak four languages. Following his participation in the Psaros Center’s FinPolicy Trek, Pavlos works for the Psaros Center, where he has provided research and operational insights for various events. Additionally, Pavlos serves as a Teaching Assistant for Professor Reena Aggarwal’s “Business Financial Management” course. Last summer, Pavlos worked at iA Financial Group in Montreal as a fixed-income intern where he took on an operational workflow project surrounding AI large language models. During his free time, Pavlos enjoys playing soccer on Georgetown’s Men’s Club Team, collecting vintage artifacts, and spending time with his friends and family.

Rohan Mistry

Student Assistant

Rohan Mistry is a sophomore at Georgetown University McDonough School of Business studying Finance and Operations & Analytics, with a minor in Statistics. Besides assisting the Psaros Center, Rohan is involved with Georgetown Hoyalytics, a student-run data analytics consulting club, and the Georgetown University Student Investment Fund. Off-campus, Rohan has held internships at Patomak Global Partners, a financial regulation consulting firm, and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission within the Division of Economic Risk and Analysis. Rohan is originally from Albany, New York.

Psaros FinPolicy Trek Scholars

Will Burke
Maxwell Bassin
Kelly Grace Richardson
Siona Mondal
Nadia Nasim
Pavlos Tentomas
Ava Uditsky
Hailey Walker
Julian Wang
Alex Yu
Holden Zerega

Learn More About Us

Prof. Rohan WIlliamson sitting in a chair speaking during a panel

Our Faculty