Cohort¶

The ASSIP 2026 Empirical Finance Research Group is a single mentor group of 14 students under Prof. Lei Gao. Fourteen is the high end of the typical ASSIP mentor-group size (ASSIP's published range is 2 – 15), so we operate with a layered mentorship structure: four PhD/RA sub-leaders run four pods of 3 – 4 students each, and Prof. Gao runs the full-cohort sessions and the weekly mentor session for each pod.

Roster is filled in during Orientation

The 14 student profiles below are placeholders. Students fill in their own profile cards during the June 18 orientation (or by the end of Week 1 at the latest). The pod assignments are made by Prof. Gao after the orientation interest survey.

The 14 student profiles¶

Student 01

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [A]
Student 02

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [A]
Student 03

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [A]
Student 04

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [A]
Student 05

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [B]
Student 06

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [B]
Student 07

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [B]
Student 08

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [B]
Student 09

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [C]
Student 10

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [C]
Student 11

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [C]
Student 12

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [D]
Student 13

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [D]
Student 14

School: [TBD] Year: [HS/UG TBD] Interests: [TBD] Project track: [TBD] Pod: [D]

Layered mentorship¶

flowchart TD
    G[Prof. Lei Gao<br/>Faculty Mentor]
    G --> RA1[Pod A RA Sub-leader<br/>TBD]
    G --> RA2[Pod B RA Sub-leader<br/>TBD]
    G --> RA3[Pod C RA Sub-leader<br/>TBD]
    G --> RA4[Pod D RA Sub-leader<br/>TBD]

    RA1 --> S01[Student 01]
    RA1 --> S02[Student 02]
    RA1 --> S03[Student 03]
    RA1 --> S04[Student 04]

    RA2 --> S05[Student 05]
    RA2 --> S06[Student 06]
    RA2 --> S07[Student 07]
    RA2 --> S08[Student 08]

    RA3 --> S09[Student 09]
    RA3 --> S10[Student 10]
    RA3 --> S11[Student 11]

    RA4 --> S12[Student 12]
    RA4 --> S13[Student 13]
    RA4 --> S14[Student 14]

    classDef faculty fill:#006633,color:#fff,stroke:#003a1e,stroke-width:2px
    classDef ra fill:#ffcc33,color:#000,stroke:#cc9900,stroke-width:1px
    classDef student fill:#f7f7f7,color:#222,stroke:#bbb,stroke-width:1px
    class G faculty
    class RA1,RA2,RA3,RA4 ra
    class S01,S02,S03,S04,S05,S06,S07,S08,S09,S10,S11,S12,S13,S14 student

How the layers work in practice.

Daily — pod stand-up on Slack at 9:30 am ET, 15 minutes, RA sub-leader runs it.
Weekly — pod working session with the RA sub-leader (Tue/Thu, 2 hours). Prof. Gao joins one pod each week on a rotation.
Weekly — full-cohort mentor session with Prof. Gao, Wed 2:00 – 3:30 pm ET (see the weekly schedule).
Ad hoc — students can request a 1-on-1 with their RA sub-leader at any time; Prof. Gao 1-on-1s are by appointment (book via Slack).

Read the full mentor profiles on the Mentors page.

Cohort culture¶

Be kind to the person. Be tough on the work.

The single sentence that governs how we critique each other in this cohort. You can — and should — say that figure is unreadable or that robustness check is missing. You may not say you are sloppy. The distinction matters because the same student will be defending the same poster on August 12; we want them to walk in confident, not wounded.

A few specifics:

Show up. Remote is not a permission slip for invisibility. Camera on for mentor sessions, present in the Slack channel during work hours, commits on your branch by 5:00 pm ET.
Ask early. A two-day rabbit hole on a bug that an RA could have unstuck in fifteen minutes is the most expensive thing you can do this summer. Slack first; Stack Overflow second; AI third — and always cite, per Chapter 6.5.
No fabrication, ever. This is not optional and not negotiable. See the Code of Conduct.
Reproduce before you trust. Before you celebrate a number, re-run the pipeline from scratch and check that the same number falls out. Reproducibility is a habit, not an audit.
Credit the person who unblocked you. In commits, in poster acknowledgments, in JSSR abstracts. The professional norm is generous credit; you start practicing it in Week 1.

Communication channels¶

Channel	Purpose	Norms
Slack workspace (`assip-2026-finance`, invites issued at orientation)	Default for everything: questions, stand-ups, pings, share-outs.	Use threads. Cross-link to GitHub PRs. Async-first; do not expect replies outside 9 am – 6 pm ET.
Zoom	Full-cohort mentor sessions, pod working sessions, 1-on-1s. Links pinned in Slack `#announcements`.	Camera on for mentor sessions. Record only with consent of everyone on the call.
GitHub (org: `gmu-assip-2026`, TBD)	Code, PAPs, posters, all artifacts.	One repo per student. PR-based workflow; nothing pushed directly to `main`.
Email	Institutional / formal communication only — credit transcripts, JSSR submissions, family-facing announcements.	Cc Prof. Gao (lgao9@gmu.edu) and the program office (cosassip@gmu.edu) for anything official.
Office hours	Open Zoom room, Friday 1:00 – 2:30 pm ET, drop in. Pod sub-leaders also hold individual office hours; see the Mentors page.	First-come, first-served. Bring code or a question, not just a feeling.

The single canonical place for the schedule this week is the weekly schedule and the "Right now" admonition on the home page. If anything anywhere on the wiki disagrees with that admonition, the admonition wins.