Whitman School names Kavajecz new dean, effective July 1

SYRACUSE — Syracuse University (SU)’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management will have a new dean this July 1st. And, he comes from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

SU announced that Kenneth Kavajecz, currently a professor and chairman of the department of finance at Wisconsin–Madison, will take over as Whitman School dean.

His appointment concludes a national search to replace Dean Melvin Stith, who announced a year ago he’d be stepping down at the end of the spring 2013 semester, the school said in a news release.

Kavajecz has focused much of his research on the structure of financial markets, with an expertise in liquidity, trading, risk management, market structure and regulation, SU said.

His work has been published in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, and The Review of Financial Studies.

“I am extremely excited to partner with the Whitman School community [including] faculty, staff, students and alumni,” Kavajecz said in the release. “…to build off the successes of Dean Stith by enabling research excellence and innovative teaching, and engaging the Syracuse campus, the region and beyond in our mission.”

Kavajecz holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an M.S. and Ph.D. in finance from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He has served as a member of the Economic Advisory Board for the National Association of Securities Dealers and has worked as an assistant economist at the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System.

The Whitman School has about 2,000 graduate and undergraduate students, according to its website.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com