Doctoral Program PHD

Bar Ifrach
PhD student, Decision, Risk, and Operations

On the advice of an undergraduate professor, Bar Ifrach applied to Columbia Business School. Now a PhD student in the Decision, Risk, and Operations Division, Ifrach’s research focuses on social learning, revenue management, industrial organization, and game theory.

“Often, consumers are uncertain about the quality of a new product. To make better decisions, they look at reviews made by consumers who have purchased the product before,” Ifrach says. “This is social or word-of-mouth learning, and understanding such phenomena is becoming more important with the proliferation of e-commerce and social networks.

“Finding research topics was easy, because the DRO faculty have diverse research interests, and guest speakers from top universities present state-of-the-art research almost every week. The pace of the PhD program is quick, but by the end of every semester I felt I had learned a lot. Columbia offers an exciting and energetic learning environment in the best city in the world.”

Andres Liberman
PhD student, Finance and Economics

Andres Liberman wanted to better understand the way people and firms make financial decisions and how those decisions affect society — “without the time and resource constraints of having a job with deadlines,” he says. He now spends his time using empirical methods to study corporate finance.

“I’m currently investigating how changes in a firm’s trade credit conditions affect its operations and financing. To do so, I’m using a quasi-experimental setting involving suppliers of a supermarket,” Liberman explains.

“The PhD program has laid the foundations of a future career in research by helping me learn the common language of economics and finance and to identify the topics that are worth pursuing. After graduation, I hope to continue doing empirically oriented research, either in a university or another type of position, which hopefully has a meaningful impact on the way society understands issues related to finance.”

Liad Weiss
PhD student, Marketing

Liad Weiss’s winding path toward a PhD started in Israel. He started a master’s degree there after completing his undergraduate studies, also keeping a part-time job as an IT security consultant. Through his master’s program, Weiss got involved in research and loved it. From there, earning a PhD was the obvious next step.

“Once I realized that research was what I wanted to do, I made up my mind to aim for the best possible training I could get. I applied to Columbia after learning that it is one of the best places to study for a behavioral PhD in marketing,” Weiss says.

“The School has an amazing group of professors in the Marketing Division, which is very in tune with students’ needs in developing independent research projects. The division gives outstanding support in training, classes, research discussions, and constructive feedback. And finally, the School’s location is definitely a deal-maker.”

Andy Yap
PhD student, Management

Andy Yap studies the impact of power and status on organizational behavior. Although he credits faculty mentors as the main drivers of his success in the PhD program, Yap says several factors brought him to Columbia in the first place.

“First, the research environment is terrific. I get to exchange ideas with world-class researchers who often challenge and encourage me to cultivate new ways of thinking,” Yap says. “The School takes pride in being at the forefront of cutting-edge business research.

“Second, the School has a remarkable record of placing students in top-notch institutions when they graduate. This speaks well about the kind of training Columbia provides.

And third, it’s New York City! I don’t think I need to elaborate on this.”

Sharon Katz
PhD ’06, assistant professor of Accounting

Now an assistant professor of accounting at Columbia Business School, Sharon Katz pursued a PhD after a career on Wall Street. He found that his real-world connections merged and grew at the School through his academic and research interests.

“Joining Columbia enabled me to continue my interactions with Wall-Street colleagues and effortlessly, which has been key to connecting my research to real-world issues,” Katz says.

“Columbia gave me the opportunity to focus on topics that interest me like equity and debt valuation, tax avoidance, and earnings quality. I also appreciated the ability to interact with the top researchers in the field.”

Lori Qingyuan Yue
PhD ’10, Management

Lori Qingyuan Yue says she chose Columbia Business School‘s PhD program for its “intellectual rigor, excellent support for students, great location, and international atmosphere.” Her experiences as a student helped lead to her current position as assistant professor in the management and organization department of the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.

“The breadth and depth of the mentoring I received at Columbia offered me remarkable opportunities to find my path as a scholar,” Yue says. “As students, we were strongly encouraged to challenge existing thinking and generate new ideas.” 

“Columbia not only treats students as valued peers of the intellectual community, but also offers the tools, resources, and support to launch a successful academic career.”

Omar Besbes
PhD ’08, assistant professor of Decision, Risk, and Operations

After a few years working in industry, Omar Besbes embarked on a career in academia and research. After earning his PhD at Columbia Business School, he joined the Wharton School before coming back to his alma mater. Today, he is an assistant professor in the Decision, Risk, and Operations Division at the School.

“When exploring PhD programs, the main attractions that drew me to Columbia and DRO Division at the Business School in particular were the cutting-edge research that faculty and PhD students engaged in, the breadth of topics their research covered, and the flexibility in defining one’s agenda,” Besbes says. “As a student, I took classes in a variety of departments within and outside the School, which allowed me to significantly broaden my horizons.

“This freedom, along with the openness of the faculty in helping PhD candidates explore new ideas, and the collaborative culture among students, has made for an extremely enriching experience from both an academic and personal perspective.”

Xi Zou
PhD ’99, Management

When Xi Zou started her journey toward a PhD, she thought she was in for a lonely ride. “Pursuing a PhD is typically a relatively solitary endeavor,” Zou says. Instead, she found her five years at Columbia Business School not only challenging and thought-provoking, but collaborative.

“I was very fortunate to be able to work with world-class faculty in several different areas,” says Zou, now an assistant professor of organizational behavior at London Business School. “Because the research community at Columbia is close and strong, I also had opportunities to collaborate with my peers and students from other PhD programs across the university.”

Bugra Ozel
PhD ’10, Accounting

For Bugra Ozel, location was everything when it came to choosing a PhD program.

“I cannot think of a better place to study business,” he says. “Columbia Business School is a top business school with a great academic environment, and it is located in the financial capital of the world. It was an easy choice.”

Once on campus, Ozel, who is now assistant professor of accounting at University of California, Los Angeles Anderson School of Management, found more to recommend Columbia Business School than New York City.

“During the doctoral program, I was equipped with the tools that are necessary for conducting high-quality research. More importantly, the program helped me view issues from different perspectives and develop a mindset for innovative research. I have confidence knowing that I was trained in one of best doctoral programs in the world. I strongly believe that my training will play a key role in achieving my long-term career goals.”

Rom Schrift
PhD ’11, Marketing

Rom Schrift, an assistant professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, says he chose Columbia Business School to get his PhD because of the diversity and expertise offered in the Marketing Division.

“First, no matter which topic in the marketing field I chose to work on, Columbia’s faculty offered at least one — and usually more — experts in each area,” Schrift says. “Second, the atmosphere and interactions between faculty and students were very open — a perfect setting for student-faculty collaborations.

“My co-advisers, professors Oded Netzer and Ran Kivetz, always offered valuable insights and illuminated the path for my future progress as a researcher. The rigorous training and knowledge I received, as well as the supportive environment, have made my graduate studies an experience I will always cherish.”

Roy Chua
PhD ’08, Management

For Roy Chua, the network of mentors and classmates gained at Columbia Business School has been as important to his post-PhD success as the training he received in the field of organizational behavior.

“I was very fortunate to have great mentors like professors Michael Morris and Sheena Iyengar. They have profoundly shaped the way I think about research, and taught me how to ask relevant questions. I have since developed a program of research examining how multicultural social environments shape individuals’ ability to think creatively,” says Chua, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School.

“I also appreciate the fact that many of my classmates were excellent scholars in the making. They were great partners for discussing new ideas. Some have become not only lifelong friends, but also research collaborators.”

Vyacheslav (Slava) Fos
PhD ’11, Finance and Economics

Slava Fos is an assistant professor of finance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where he focuses on corporate governance and financial markets.

“The mere possibility of hostile shareholders’ activism has a significant impact on public companies,” Fos explains. “When the likelihood of shareholders’ intervention increases, management takes value-enhancing actions to prevent the interference. By studying materialized events only, we significantly underestimate the disciplinary effects of hostile activism: the mere threat of an intervention disciplines entrenched managers.

“The best support I received from the faculty at Columbia Business School was their time. This is the most important support a PhD student can get.”