Alexei Zhdanov

Alexei Zhdanov is the J. Randall Woolridge Professor of Finance at Penn State University's Smeal College of Business. He holds a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Rochester's William E. Simon School of Business, and previously held faculty positions at the Swiss Finance Institute, the University of Lausanne, and George Mason University.

His industry experience includes research and portfolio management at PanAgora Asset Management in Boston, a top-ranked quantitative investment firm; a senior economist role at Cornerstone Research in New York; and several years in commercial banking at a large international bank in Russia.

His work examines how real options, strategic interaction, and information frictions shape corporate decisions and asset prices, from the dynamics of mergers and acquisitions to the pricing of equity and derivative claims.