Skip to content

Mentors

The 14-student cohort is supported by a three-tier mentorship structure: one faculty mentor (Prof. Gao), four PhD/RA pod sub-leaders, and the ASSIP program office (Dr. Haymond Still and team). Below is who they are, what they own, and how to reach them.

Faculty mentor

Prof. Lei Gao

Associate Professor of Finance · Costello College of Business, George Mason University   lgao9@gmu.edu  ·    PhD, University of Georgia  ·    former SEC Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA)

Prof. Gao is the faculty mentor for the ASSIP 2026 Empirical Finance Research Group. His research is in empirical corporate finance, banking, fair lending, and the regulatory uses of machine learning; he has been invited to testify before Congress as an expert witness on fair-lending policy, and his research speaks to fair-lending and disclosure questions of the kind considered by regulators such as the SEC and CFPB.

Selected published research (verified anchor papers used in this cohort's reading list):

  • Sun, H., & Gao, L. (2019). Lending practices to same-sex borrowers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(19), 9293 – 9302.
  • Gao, L., Han, Y., Li, S. Z., & Zhou, G. (2018). Market Intraday Momentum. Journal of Financial Economics, 129(2), 394 – 414.
  • Elnahas, A., Gao, L., Hossain, M. N., & Kim, J.-B. (2024). CEO Political Ideology and Voluntary Forward-Looking Disclosure. Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, 59(8), 3671 – 3707.

A full publication list is on his research page, GMU faculty page, and Google Scholar profile.

What he owns in this cohort:

  • The Wednesday full-cohort mentor session (2:00 – 3:30 pm ET).
  • PAP sign-off (after the pod RA sub-leader reviews).
  • Final poster approval before the August 12 symposium.
  • One pod's weekly working session per week (rotation across the four pods).
  • Office hours: Friday 1:00 – 2:30 pm ET (open Zoom room, link in #announcements).

Best way to reach him: Slack DM for anything not-urgent; email for institutional or formal matters; office hours for code or specification questions that need a whiteboard.

PhD / RA pod sub-leaders

Four PhD students and research assistants run the four pods. Each sub-leader is responsible for the daily stand-up, the bi-weekly pod working session, PAP first-pass review, and unblocking debugging questions.

Sub-leader assignments to be confirmed

The four sub-leader profiles below are placeholders. Names, photos, and short bios are filled in by the program office once the RA roster is finalized (typically the week of orientation, June 18, 2026).

Pod A sub-leader — [Name TBD]

  [email TBD]  ·    PhD candidate, [department TBD] Research interests: [TBD] Pod office hours: [TBD] Owns: Pod A daily stand-up (9:30 am ET), Tue/Thu working sessions, PAP first-pass review for Students 01 – 04.

Pod B sub-leader — [Name TBD]

  [email TBD]  ·    PhD candidate, [department TBD] Research interests: [TBD] Pod office hours: [TBD] Owns: Pod B daily stand-up, Tue/Thu working sessions, PAP first-pass review for Students 05 – 08.

Pod C sub-leader — [Name TBD]

  [email TBD]  ·    PhD candidate, [department TBD] Research interests: [TBD] Pod office hours: [TBD] Owns: Pod C daily stand-up, Tue/Thu working sessions, PAP first-pass review for Students 09 – 11.

Pod D sub-leader — [Name TBD]

  [email TBD]  ·    PhD candidate, [department TBD] Research interests: [TBD] Pod office hours: [TBD] Owns: Pod D daily stand-up, Tue/Thu working sessions, PAP first-pass review for Students 12 – 14.

Institutional contact — ASSIP Program Office

Dr. Amanda Haymond Still

ASSIP Program Director · College of Science, George Mason University   cosassip@gmu.edu

Dr. Haymond Still runs the entire ASSIP program — all mentor groups, not just ours — and is the contact for everything that crosses the line between this cohort's empirical-finance work and the broader GMU program. Email her (and Cc Prof. Gao) for:

  • Anything to do with the GMU College of Science credit transfer to your home school.
  • Tuition, fees, or waivers (Pell-eligible / reduced-lunch full waivers).
  • The August 12 symposium logistics — printing, room assignments, family registration.
  • JSSR submission paperwork after symposium.
  • Code-of-conduct concerns that cannot be resolved at the pod or mentor level.
  • Any medical, accessibility, or family-emergency accommodation.

The general program website is the official source for dates, deadlines, and policies; cosassip@gmu.edu is the human at the other end.

Who to ping for what — quick map

If you have a question about… Ping…
Where to find a function in NumPy/pandas; a debugging stack trace Your pod sub-leader, in Slack
Whether your research question is well-posed; how to specify your regression Your pod sub-leader first, then Prof. Gao in Wednesday session
Whether your PAP is ready to file Pod sub-leader first; final sign-off from Prof. Gao
WRDS access, GMU credentials, GitHub org invitation Program office (cosassip@gmu.edu), Cc Prof. Gao
Poster printing, symposium logistics, JSSR submission Program office
Credit transfer to your high school or undergrad institution Program office
A teammate is being unkind, or the work culture feels off Pod sub-leader first; Prof. Gao if unresolved; program office for anything that violates the Code of Conduct
You're going to miss a day or a deliverable Pod sub-leader and Prof. Gao, before the deadline if possible