Faculty and Research

World-Class Faculty

With a faculty roster ranked 7th in the world by the Financial Times that boasts some of today’s top finance thought leaders and world-class research capabilities, Rotman represents the pinnacle of academic achievement in finance today. Our professors have built a stellar reputation for their ground-breaking research, their published work, and their authoritative insight into finance issues. They will be your teachers, mentors and team builders, spurring you to think in ways you never imagined. 

They include:

• The largest number of leading-edge management educators in Canada
• Of the 11 fellows of the prestigious Royal Society of Canada teaching at Canadian business schools, four are employed by the Rotman School

Our Faculty

Laurence Booth
Professor of Finance, CIT Chair in Structured Finance

DBA, Indiana University
MBA, Indiana University
MA, Indiana University
B.Sc in Economics, London School of Economics

Laurence Booth's research interests are in corporate finance and the behaviour of regulated industries. Published extensively in top academic and professional journals, he is the co-author of two major textbooks: International Business and Introduction to Corporate Finance. Laurence is on the editorial board of four academic journals and in 2003 was awarded the Financial Post’s Leader in Management Education Award.

Peter Christoffersen
Program Co-Director, Master of Financial Risk Management, Professor of Finance, TMX Chair in Capital Markets, Bank of Canada Fellow

PhD in Economics, University of Pennsylvania
BA in Economics, University of Copenhagen

Peter Christoffersen is the TMX Chair in Capital Markets and a Fellow of the Bank of Canada. He publishes in empirical asset pricing and financial econometrics and is the author of Elements of Financial Risk Management. He serves as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Derivatives. Peter has won research awards from AIMA Canada and the Q-Group. He previously taught at McGill University and worked at the IMF.

John Hull
Program Co-Director, Master of Finance, Professor of Finance and Maple Financial Group Chair in Derivatives and Risk Management

PhD, Cranfield University

Recognized as one of the world’s pre-eminent derivatives experts, John Hull is the author of Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives, Risk Management and Financial Institutions, and Fundamentals of Futures and Options Markets. All are widely used in trading rooms and business schools around the world.

In 2011, received a lifetime achievement award from Risk, one of the world’s leading financial risk management magazines.

Heather-Anne Irwin
Adjunct Professor of Finance

MBA, Schulich School of Business, York University
Bachelor of Engineering, Queen’s University

Heather-Anne Irwin has been involved in the capital markets industry for 17 years, as an investment banker (both in finance and M&A), new issue equity specialist, and in fixed income with Citicorp (New York) & Citibank Canada, Nesbitt Burns Inc., and TD Securities Inc. The founding president of Women in Capital Markets, she has been teaching Finance at the Rotman School since 2003 and has had the honour of being named Professor of the Year — a Graduate Business Council award.

Tom McCurdy
Professor of Finance, Bonham Chair in International Finance, Founder and Academic Director, BMO Financial Group Finance Research & Trading Lab, Status cross-appointment with Economics

PhD, University of London (LSE)
MA, University of British Columbia
BA (Hons), University of Guelph

Tom McCurdy holds the Bonham Chair in International Finance and is the Founder & Academic Director of the BMO Financial Group Finance Research and Trading Lab, and has been an Associate Fellow at the CIRANO Research Institute (Montreal), and an Associate Editor for the Journal of Financial Econometrics. Recent research includes forecasting correlations; real-time identification of structural breaks and model changes; jump and crash risk; and simulation-based learning. Tom is the co-founder of the RIT market simulator package which includes more than 40 simulation cases which are currently being used by many universities around the globe.

Fotini Tolias
Academic Director, Master of Finance, Associate Professor

MBA, Schulich School of Business, York University
BComm., University of Toronto

Fotini Tolias spent the majority of her career working in financial services both in debt and equities. Fotini has over 10 years experience working in corporate bond origination, on the fixed income trading floor for several large global investment banks. Her mandate focused on meeting the fixed income requirements of both corporate issuers and institutional investors. She also did significant Mergers & Acquisition advisory work including corporate reorganizations and take-out financings.

Alan White
Peter L. Mitchelson/SIT Investment Associates Foundation Chair in Investment Strategy and Professor of Finance

PhD, University of Toronto

A member of the Moody’s academic advisory panel and associate editor of The Journal of Derivatives.

Well known for his work with Professor John Hull on stochastic volatility, as well as for the Hull-White interest rate model, used by financial institutions in trading rooms globally. His current research is predominantly in the analysis of credit risk.