In This Section
Finance Department Faculty and Staff
Department Head
Kimberly CornaggiaLouis & Virginia Benzak Professor of Finance
Professor Cornaggia is an expert in corporate finance, credit risk, credit ratings, public finance, and household finance. Her research has been published in leading academic finance journals including the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Management Science, Review of Finance, and Review of Financial Studies.
Dr. Cornaggia is the Finance Department Head and research director of the Center for the Study of Financial Markets at the Smeal College of Business and serves on the boards of the Eastern Finance Association and Western Finance Association.
Prior to joining the Smeal College faculty, Dr. Cornaggia served on the faculty at American University, College of William and Mary, New York University, and Indiana University. Her non-academic experience includes analyzing asset-backed securities markets and the credit ratings industry for the US Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice.
She received her Ph.D. from the Krannert Graduate School at Purdue University and her B.S. from the University of Nebraska where she majored in Actuarial Science and Finance.
Assistant Department Head
Svetla VitanovaSvetla Vitanova is an Associate Teaching Professor of Finance at the Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University. She received her Ph.D. from Brown University in 2010. Her research has appeared in Management Science. Currently, Svetla is teaching Financial Markets and Institutions and Multinational Financial Management.