Gilbert named to Poets & Quants’ list of 40 best young business faculty

Gilbert_Thomas-22-XL[1]Thomas Gilbert, an assistant professor of finance at the Foster School of Business, has been named to Poets & Quants’ list of the “40 under 40 Most Outstanding MBA Professors.”

The influential MBA news site devised the list from student nominations around the world.

Gilbert joined the Foster School Department of Finance and Business Economics in 2008, after completing his doctoral work at UC-Berkeley (from which, he notes in Poets & Quants, his diploma was signed by “The Terminator” himself, then-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger).

Gilbert teaches the core managerial finance courses in Foster’s Full-time MBA Program. Poets & Quants notes that his students describe him as “dynamic,” “helpful,” “patient” and “caring”—the kind of teacher who makes “intimidating” content “fun.”

The profile also reveals that Gilbert:

  • was inspired to become a professor by his father, Dr. Gilbert, who was director of research at the World Health Organization;
  • aspired to be Pope as a child, but would settle for ski bum and part-time archeologist if the finance thing ever gets old;
  • can perform a hand-stand pushup (among other Crossfit feats of strength);
  • loves Belgian comic books, “too many movies” and “Seinfeld;”
  • enjoys classical music;
  • doesn’t do social media.

On the professional side, Gilbert has been selected MBA Core Professor of the Year five times at Foster. He also has won the PACCAR Award for Teaching Excellence (2010), the Charles E. Summer Outstanding Teaching Award (2011), the Daniel R. Siegel Service Award (2011) and the Ph.D. Program Mentoring Award (2012).

Gilbert’s research investigates financial markets, asset pricing and portfolio choice. His recent publications include studies finding that:

In the Poets & Quants article, Gilbert says that he’d love to see even more “connections between faculty and the companies who hire our students so that what we teach and the way we teach it can be in line with the expectations, demands and wishes of the real world.”

Read more here.

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