Following the success of the recent First Meeting on Methodological and Empirical Advances in Financial Analysis, 14-15 Feb 2008, MEAFA called upon an urgent strategy meeting to discuss the future direction of the research group.
During that meeting, MEAFA decided to open the membership base to other faculty and international members that are relevant and can substantially contribute to the research group.
Given the significant expansion across disciplines, we firstly decided to establish an Advisory Committee to assist with steering the direction of the group. Only senior researchers will take part on the Advisory Committee and we are very pleased to announce the first two distinguished members: Prof Robert Bartels (Econometrics) Prof Graeme Dean (Accounting). Prof Bartels and Prof Dean seem to be the ideal scholars for this advisory role, given their extensive research careers, international collaborations, ongoing industry experience and cross-disciplinary work in general.
Secondly, MEAFA is delighted to welcome to its rank the Discipline of Economics, as currently represented by Dr Tim Fisher and Dr Hajime Katayama. Economics was the missing component to the research group, and we are glad to find yet another 'puzzle piece' that matches to the research group profile.
Thirdly, we are pleased to welcome Andrey Vansev (Econometrics) and Robert Czernkowski (Accounting) as additional members. Both Andrey and Robert are strong supporters of cross-disciplinary research such as the one pursuit within MEAFA and we expect great contribution from both of them.
Lastly, we are also expanding our international membership base starting with a very distinguished international scholar: Prof Geoff Whittington (see related blog entry). Prof Whittington's research spans over several disciplines, including Accounting, Finance, Economics, Industrial Economics and others, and has an invaluable industry and standard setting experience.
MEAFA seems to be enjoying widespread recognition and appreciation, and we all feel fortunate to be part of this exciting initiative.