Research Staff

Ron Alquist, Researcher, joined the OFR in 2020. He has written about asset pricing, international finance, and global commodity markets. He has published peer-reviewed articles in the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of International Economics, the Journal of Applied Econometrics, and the Journal of Portfolio Management, among others. His work at the OFR focuses on the asset management industry, with a particular focus on the implications of hedge funds' investment and risk management decisions for financial stability. Most recently, he was a quantitative researcher at AQR Capital Management. Prior to that, he was an economist at Kings Peak Asset Management and the Bank of Canada. He has a doctorate in economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, a master's in finance and economics from the London School of Economics, and a bachelor's in economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz. ron.alquist@ofr.treasury.gov

Ted Berg, Senior Financial Analyst, joined the OFR in 2012. He leads the Office's corporate credit and equity market monitoring efforts. He also conducts research on hedge fund activities. Before coming to the OFR, he worked in the private sector, including eight years with Lehman Brothers. Prior experience includes roles in equity research, corporate finance, and investment management. He has a master's in business administration from Washington University's Olin Business School and a bachelor's in accounting from the University of Missouri. He holds the chartered financial analyst designation, is a former certified public accountant, and has lectured on financial markets at universities. theodore.berg@ofr.treasury.gov

Steve Bright, Financial Analyst, joined the OFR in 2014. He focuses on analyzing company financials and identifying financial market issues and trends, and he has contributed to the OFR Briefs series. Bright was a research analyst in Wells Fargo's Treasury Portfolio Group before joining the OFR. He also worked as a research analyst at other financial institutions covering various equity sectors. While serving in the U.S. Army, he worked on budget and readiness analysis. Bright holds a master's in business administration from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business and a bachelor's in finance from the University of Texas at San Antonio. steve.bright@ofr.treasury.gov

Dagmar Chiella, Senior Financial Analyst, joined the OFR in 2015 and has extensive experience. During more than 16 years at Moody's Corp., where she was a vice president and senior analyst, she was involved in rating a variety of financial institutions, including U.S. securities firms, specialty finance companies, bond insurers, mortgage insurers, asset managers, pension funds, money market funds, and closed end funds. Before that, she was an investment manager at AT&T Investment Management Corp. At the OFR, she focuses on asset management, broker-dealers, specialty finance, accounting, market liquidity, and risk management. She has been a contributing author to the OFR Financial Stability Report. She has a master's in business administration from New York University's Stern School of Business and a bachelor's in accounting from Rutgers University. She is also a certified public accountant. dagmar.chiella@ofr.treasury.gov

Arthur Fliegelman, Senior Financial Analyst, joined the OFR in 2014 and specializes in the U.S. insurance industry and its investment practices. Previously, he was a program manager with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and held analyst positions at Moody's Investors Service and Salomon Brothers, Inc. He has written hundreds of reports on the insurance sector and continues that focus at the OFR. Fliegelman has a master's in business administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and a bachelor's in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles. He also holds the chartered financial analyst designation. He is an active member of the New York Society of Security Analysts, where he has twice been honored as volunteer of the year. arthur.fliegelman@ofr.treasury.gov

Katherine Gleason, Research Principal, joined the OFR in 2015. Her research focuses on risks and regulation in banking. She also serves as lead author of the financial stability assessment section of the Office's annual reports. Gleason previously worked for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. analyzing financial institution, market, and economic risks associated with the 2007-09 financial crisis and its aftermath. Prior to her government service, she was an assistant professor of finance at the University of New Orleans. She has a doctorate and master's in finance from The George Washington University and a bachelor's in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University. katherine.gleason@ofr.treasury.gov

Hashim Hamandi, Supervisory Financial Analyst, joined the Office in 2012. Previously he worked on financial reform issues for the Treasury Department. He has also worked for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and in investment banking at Citibank and JPMorgan. His interests include shadow banking and resolution planning. He has a master's in business administration from the University of Virginia, a master's in economics from Fordham University, and a bachelor's in economics from Virginia Tech. hashim.hamandi@ofr.treasury.gov

Sam Hempel, Researcher, joined the OFR in 2020. His research focuses on market participants and institutions in exchange-traded funds. He has previously conducted research with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's Office of the Chief Economist. He was also a legislative intern in the U.S. Senate. He has a doctorate and a master's in finance from Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management. He also has a master's and a bachelor's in economics from the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business, and a bachelor's in statistics from the University of Georgia. samuel.hempel@ofr.treasury.gov

Francisco E. Ilabaca, Researcher, joined the OFR in 2020. His primary research areas are macroeconomics and international economics. His research focuses on the transmission of macroeconomic shocks across countries, inflation expectations of firms and the market, and the effects of U.S. monetary policy on international asset prices. Previously, he worked as a consultant for the World Bank and as an intern at the International Monetary Fund. He has a doctorate and a master's in economics from the University of California, Irvine, and he also holds a bachelor's in economics from the University of California, Riverside. francisco.ilabaca@ofr.treasury.gov

Dasol Kim, Senior Researcher, joined the OFR in 2016. His primary research areas are in banking, financial intermediation, and behavioral finance. He has worked as an assistant professor in banking and finance at Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, where he taught in subjects including fixed income analysis and financial modeling. His research has been featured in media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, and Forbes. He has a doctorate in financial economics from Yale School of Management, Yale University; a master’s in statistics from Columbia University; and a bachelor’s in mathematics and economics with a minor in English literature from the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to his doctoral program, he served as a research and teaching fellow at Stanford Law School, Stanford University. dasol.kim@ofr.treasury.gov

R. Jay Kahn, Researcher, joined the OFR in 2019. His research focuses on combining data analysis with economic models to quantify the macroeconomic consequences of frictions in financial sector liquidity provision. He assists the OFR's efforts related to secured-funding reference rates. He has a doctorate in finance from the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, a master's in finance from the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business and a bachelor's in mathematics and economics from Reed College. robert.kahn@ofr.treasury.gov

Ruth Leung, Senior Financial Analyst, joined the Office in 2014. Her areas of research include insurance, stress testing, and structured finance. Her work has appeared in OFR briefs and the Office's annual reports and Financial Stability Report. Leung was previously a senior financial analyst with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., where she was an insurance expert. She worked in the financial services industry for 25 years and has extensive experience in capital markets, commercial banking, and structured finance. She has a master's in business administration from New York University's Stern School of Business and a bachelor's in operations research from Columbia University. ruth.leung@ofr.treasury.gov

Mark Paddrik, Senior Researcher, joined the Office in 2013. His doctoral dissertation work focused on decomposing complexity in price discovery data using visualizations, agent-based models, and Markov models. His research at the OFR, where he has written several working papers, focuses on network models of contagion and stress testing for the financial system and on examining the influence of market microstructure and market participant behavior on price discovery. He has a doctorate, master's, and bachelor's in systems engineering and a bachelor's in economics from the University of Virginia. mark.paddrik@ofr.treasury.gov

Sriram Rajan, Senior Researcher, joined the Office in 2012. He focuses on credit derivatives markets, counterparty risk management, and measures of financial stability. His OFR working papers have evaluated counterparty concentration risk in stress tests and the market diversity implications of central clearing. In addition, Rajan is designing a systemic risk monitor for credit default swap markets. In prior private-sector positions, he brought to market a carbon portfolio risk management system used in European emissions markets and also worked in structuring and quantitative development roles in structured credit for several Wall Street firms. He has a master's in computational finance from Carnegie Mellon University and a bachelor's in chemistry/economics from Duke University. sriram.rajan@ofr.treasury.gov

Stacey Schreft, Deputy Director for Research and Analysis, who oversees the OFR Research and Analysis Center, joined the Office in 2015. Her areas of research expertise include financial crises, credit crunches, monetary policy, and payment systems. She has published dozens of articles in academic and Federal Reserve journals. Schreft came to the OFR from Scout Investments, where she was chief economist and a member of the senior leadership team. Previously, she was director of investment strategy at The Mutual Fund Store, and before that served for many years as an officer and economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. She was on the economics department faculty at Michigan State University and a visiting finance professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She has a doctorate and a master's in economics from the University of Minnesota and a bachelor's in economics from Smith College. stacey.schreft@ofr.treasury.gov

Suzanne Stahl, Financial Analyst, joined the OFR in 2012 and the research staff in 2018. She focuses on analyzing company financials. Previously, Stahl spent almost 20 years in senior analytical and leadership positions in the wholesale and retail mortgage markets. She has also served in numerous non-financial roles in the private sector and for the defense community. Stahl continues to serve as a Senior Intelligence Analyst for the Department of Defense. suzanne.stahl@ofr.treasury.gov

Daniel Stemp, Quantitative Analyst, joined the Office in 2013. He contributes regularly to OFR monitoring efforts, and led development of the Money Market Fund Monitor. Previously, he was an economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He has a bachelor's in economics and a bachelor's in geography from the University of Washington and also holds the chartered financial analyst and professional risk manager designations. He also holds a certificate in machine learning in finance from New York University. He is a former visiting scholar at Dalian Maritime University and a fluent speaker of Mandarin Chinese. daniel.stemp@ofr.treasury.gov

Peyton Young, Research Principal, joined the OFR part-time in 2012; he also holds professorships at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics. He has written widely on game theory, social norms, evolution, and bounded rationality. His research at the OFR focuses on network models of contagion in the financial system, and the effect of managerial compensation on risk-taking behavior. He has published four books and more than 70 articles in leading economics and game theory journals. He is a fellow of the Econometric Society, a fellow of the British Academy, and a former president of the Game Theory Society. He has a doctorate in mathematics from the University of Michigan and a bachelor's from Harvard University. peyton.young@ofr.treasury.gov

Ram Yamarthy, Researcher, joined the OFR in 2019. His research examines how financial markets can affect macroeconomic fluctuations and policy-related issues, using tools from dynamic modeling and time series econometrics. Previously, he spent time in the asset management industry as a research associate at AQR Capital Management. He has a doctorate and a master's in finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He also has bachelor's degrees in economics and in mathematics from New York University’s Stern School of Business. ram.yamarthy@ofr.treasury.gov