Elizabeth  Tashjian
  • Co-director, undergraduate finance program, Finance Department
  • Director Advanced Financial Analysis Program, Finance Department
  • Professor, Finance Department

Research Summary

Financial distress; Investments with an emphasis on contingent claims processing and security contract design; Visualization

Education

  • B.A., Mathematics (with honors), Boston College
  • M.S., Management (quantitative methods), Purdue University
  • Ph.D., Finance, minor field econometrics, Purdue University

Biography

Elizabeth Tashjian is a Professor of Finance at the University of Utah where she directs the Advanced Financial Analysis program. She is the founder and director of the University’s Student Investment Fund, an $1,200,000 student-run equity fund. She has been a visiting professor at INSEAD, a management institute in France, and at Hebrew University in Israel. Tashjian received her Ph.D. in Finance from Purdue University and her B.A. in Mathematics from Boston College. Her primary research interests are in corporate financial distress and futures contract design. Tashjian’s recent research focuses on large, public, corporate bankruptcies where she explores the role that specific provisions of the law play in influencing the behavior of market participants. Her paper with John McConnell of Purdue documenting the design flaw which contributed to the demise of the first interest rate futures contract, the GNMA CDR, won the "best paper of the year" award in the Review of Financial Studies. She is a Fellow of the American College of Bankruptcy. She has won numerous teaching awards and the Linda Amos award for service to women at the University of Utah and has served on the board of many non-profit organizations.