Tao Wu

Notable Quote
“I find teaching and research in an area that excites you is the best job in the world. It no longer feels like a job but more of a life-long passion. It is such an exhilarating feeling to see your research published in journals after a lot of hard work. So is the feeling to see your students grow intellectually. You are constantly surrounded by smart colleagues and students, which makes one’s life more interesting… Chicago offers business students infinite possibilities, both intellectually and professionally. It’s also a great, multi-cultural, exciting, and cosmopolitan place to live and work.”

Notable Vignette
In 2006, I was invited to present my doctoral dissertation at the Wharton School to the American Finance Association Annual meeting in Boston. It was a truly honor to speak in front of the brightest minds of academic finance as the competition to the conference is keen, with an acceptance rate slightly above 10%. My paper studies how buy and hold investors affect stock price returns and interest rate. It inspired several papers from other scholars. One of them is published in the American Economic Review.

What excites me about Stuart
What excite me about the Stuart are the curriculum and the professors who teach it. The courses offered at Stuart blend academic rigor with practical knowledge. They are both intellectually stimulating as well as market oriented. Such accomplishments are only possible with an outstanding faculty holding advanced degrees from elite universities. Many of them also have real world experience in the industry and integrate practical knowledge in their teaching.

My Teaching Philosophy
My experience in the industry prior to graduate school tells me that you cannot teach a student everything he will need for his job. So I place important emphasis on basic concepts, tools, ideas, and ways of thinking. I believe “if you give someone a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish, you feed him for life.”

My Teaching/Research Interests
I currently teach “Futures, Options, and Over-the-Counter Derivatives” to almost every master students in finance. I am passionate about this course because I believe it is essential that students build a solid foundation in derivatives that will enable them to take advanced electives and serve them well in their future careers. My current research also focuses on derivatives.