Maureen O'Hara

Program Fellow
  • S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management (Cornell University)
    Robert W. Purcell Professor of Finance and Professor of Economics

Professor O'Hara has taught at the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University since receiving her Ph.D. in Finance from Northwestern in 1979. She became an Associate Professor in 1985, Professor in 1989, and the Robert W. Purcell Professor of Management in 1993. She also holds a Professorship at the University of Technology Sydney and Honorary Doctorates from Facultés Universitaires Catholiques à Mons (FUCAM), Belgium, Universität Bern, Switzerland, and University College Dublin.

In addition to her long list of scholarly articles on banking and financial intermediaries, experimental economics, and finance and ethics, her widely-distributed and highly-regard book, Market Microstructure Theory (Blackwell 1995), presents a survey of the processes and outcomes of exchanging assets under explicit trading rules. It has been published in English, Japanese, and Chinese.

Professor O'Hara has severed on numerous corporate and other boards in many capacities, including as Member of SEC Equity Market Structure Advisory Committee (2015 - present), Director for NewStar Financial, Inc. (2006 - present), Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Investment Technology Group, Inc. (2007 - 2016), Chairman of the FINRA Economic Advisory Board (2009 - 2011), Member of the CFTC-SEC Joint Committee on Emerging Regulatory Issues (2010 - 2011), Chairman of the NASDAQ Economic Advisory Board (1996 - 1997).

She has also served as Trustee of the Teachers Insurance Annuity Association of America, President of the American Finance Association, the Western Finance Association, the Financial Management Association, the Society for Financial Studies, and the International Atlantic Economic Study. She also served as the Executive Editor of the Review of Financial Studies. She has provided consulting services for several institutions, including the New York Stock Exchange and the World Federation of Exchanges.

Education