BOSTON COLLEGE, Carroll School of Management

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, School of Engineering and Applied Science

ISTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY

Umut Gökçen received his Ph.D. in Finance from Boston College in 2010. Before joining the Faculty of Business at Özyeğin University in 2019, he was an Assistant Professor of Finance at Koç University. Over the years he has taught various courses on investments, portfolio management, and asset pricing both at the undergraduate and graduate levels. His research focuses on private pension funds, factor investing, and more recently cryptocurrencies. Umut also holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Istanbul Technical University, an M.B.A from Baruch College, and an M.S. in Financial Engineering from Columbia University.

Research / Supervision Interests

Although not limited to, some of the possible topics of supervisions are as follows:
- Empirical Asset Pricing
- Pension Funds
- Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies

**Note: I am open to new MSc and PhD students**

Current Masters Supervisions

Previous Masters Supervisions

• “Firm boundaries, incentives, and fund performance: Evidence from a private pension fund system,” with Atakan Yalçın and S. Mehmet Özsoy, (2020), Emerging Markets Review, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ememar.2020.100682
• “Trading Volume, Return Variability and Short-Term Momentum”, with Thierry Post. Published, Nov. 2016, The European Journal of Finance
• “The Case against Active Pension Funds: Evidence from the Turkish Private Pension System”, with Atakan Yalçın Published, Apr. 2015, Emerging Markets Review

FIN301 - Investments
FIN412 - Advanced Investments
FERM504 - Portfolio Management
FERM532 - Blockchain and Crypto Assets
FIN916 - Empirical Asset Pricing