Itay Goldstein
Academic Director
Itay Goldstein is the Joel S. Ehrenkranz Family Professor and a Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He has been on the faculty of the Wharton School since 2004 and holds a secondary appointment as a Professor of Economics.
Professor Goldstein currently serves as the Chairperson of the Finance Department. Prior to that, he was the coordinator of the PhD. program in Finance and, in 2022, received the Provost’s Award for Distinguished PhD Teaching and Mentoring.
Professor Goldstein earned his PhD in Economics in 2001 from Tel Aviv University. He is an expert in the areas of corporate finance, financial institutions, and financial markets, focusing on financial fragility and crises and on the feedback effects between firms and financial markets. His research has been published in top academic journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the Review of Economic Studies, and the Review of Financial Studies. His research has also been featured in the Economist, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Bloomberg, Forbes, National Public Radio, and other popular press.
Professor Goldstein was the Executive Editor of the Review of Financial Studies from 2018 to 2024. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was the co-founder and the first president of the Finance Theory Group, served as a director of the American Finance Association, the Western Finance Association, and the Financial Intermediation Research Society, and is now the Vice President of the Western Finance Association.
Professor Goldstein has served as an academic advisor in various policy institutions, including the Federal Reserve Banks of New York, Philadelphia, and Richmond, the Bank of Canada, the Bank for International Settlements, the Committee for Capital Markets Regulation, and the International Monetary Fund. He is a frequent speaker in academic and policy forums around the world and has been a keynote speaker in leading academic conferences.
His full website is available here.
Patrick Harker
Academic Director
Patrick T. Harker is a distinguished scholar, academic leader, and public policy expert with a career spanning the highest levels of academia, government, and finance.
From 2015 to 2025, Harker was the 11th president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, where he played a pivotal role in shaping U.S. monetary policy as a member of the Federal Open Market Committee. During his tenure, he helped to guide the economy through significant challenges, including the post-Great Recession recovery, the COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequent inflationary pressures. He also spearheaded initiatives to advance economic mobility, workforce development, and financial inclusion across the Federal Reserve’s Third District and nationally.
Prior to his tenure at the Federal Reserve, Harker served for nearly a decade as president of the University of Delaware, where he led a successful campus-wide strategic transformation, significantly expanded interdisciplinary research, and forged new partnerships with industry and government. Earlier, as dean of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, he transformed one of the world’s top business schools by enhancing global engagement, launching innovative research centers, expanding executive education, and investing in technology to support cutting-edge teaching and learning. His leadership helped elevate Wharton’s reputation as a hub of applied knowledge, entrepreneurship, and global economic insight.
A recognized authority in management science, financial services, and economic policy, Harker has authored or co-authored more than 100 scholarly articles. His research has advanced understanding of how financial institutions can use data and modeling to improve efficiency, manage risk, and serve customers more effectively.
Harker has also served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards, including those in the healthcare, energy, technology, and education sectors. His governance experience spans audit, risk, and strategy committees, reflecting his deep expertise in enterprise operations and financial oversight.
Early in his career, Harker served as a White House Fellow and special assistant to the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, gaining insight into the intersection of public policy, national security, and institutional leadership.
Harker holds a BS, MS, and PhD in Engineering and a Master of Arts in Economics, all from the University of Pennsylvania.
Max Harris
Senior Fellow
Max Harris is Senior Fellow at the Wharton Future of Finance Initiative. Prior to joining Wharton, he worked at the U.S. Department of the Treasury on European macroeconomic issues. In addition, he helped design and implement coronavirus relief programs at Treasury. He has also worked as a policy consultant to former Director of the National Economic Council Gene Sperling and as a policy adviser on Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign. His research focuses on international monetary history, and he is the author of the book Monetary War and Peace: London, Washington, Paris, and the Tripartite Agreement of 1936 (Cambridge University Press 2021). He holds a PhD in economics from Harvard University.
His website is available here.
Loretta Mester
Senior Fellow
Loretta J. Mester was President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland from June 1, 2014 to June 30, 2024. Prior to joining the Cleveland Fed, she had served at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, starting in 1985 as an economist, becoming senior vice president and director of research in 2000, and executive vice president and director of research in 2010. She earned a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics and economics from Barnard College of Columbia University and MA and PhD degrees in economics from Princeton University, where she was a national science fellow.
Learn more about Loretta J. Mester here.
Jianzhang Lin
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Jianzhang Lin is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Wharton Future of Finance Initiative. His research focuses on corporate finance and law and finance, with a particular interest in how legal institutions shape local economic activity and the mechanisms through which firm-level financial distress impacts workers. He also investigates the role of state-level legal provisions in governing the conversion of nonprofit hospitals to for-profit entities and how these regulatory frameworks affect hospital operations and resource allocation. Jianzhang earned his PhD in Finance from Emory University in 2025.
His full website is available here.