Ben Johnson, CFA, is director of global ETF and passive strategies research. Before assuming his current role, he was director of ETF research for Europe and Asia. He also previously served as a senior equity analyst, covering the agriculture and chemicals industries. Before joining Morningstar in 2006, he worked as a financial advisor for Morgan Stanley. Johnson holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst® designation. In 2015, Fund Directions and Fund Action named Johnson among the 2015 Rising Stars of Mutual Funds.

Antti manages AQR’s Portfolio Solutions Group, which advises institutional investors and sovereign wealth funds, and develops the firm’s broad investment ideas. Before AQR, Antti spent seven years as a senior portfolio manager at Brevan Howard, a macro hedge fund, and a decade in a variety of roles at Salomon Brothers/Citigroup. He began his career as a central bank portfolio manager in Finland. Antti earned M.Sc. degrees in economics and law from the University of Helsinki and a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Chicago. Over the years, he has advised many institutional investors, including Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global and the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation. Antti has published extensively in finance and investment journals and has received a Graham and Dodd award, the Harry M. Markowitz special distinction award, and multiple Bernstein Fabozzi/Jacobs Levy awards for his articles. His book Expected Returns (Wiley, 2011) is a broad synthesis of the central issues in investing. Antti received the CFA Institute’s 2017 Leadership in Global Investment Award.

Richard Evans’ research deals broadly with investment decisions, and his current research projects explore fund manager compensation and incentives, exchange-traded funds, corporate political activity and stock performance, short-selling and quantitative vs. fundamental investment strategies.  His work has been published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics and the Review of Financial Studies and has been cited by the financial press (New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and Forbes magazine) as well as regulatory agencies (Securities and Exchange Commission, US General Accounting Office and the White House Council of Economic Advisors).

He has presented his research to the SEC, Federal Reserve, Social Security Administration, and the American Finance Association.  He currently serves on the Editorial board of the Financial Analysts Journal and he has taught executive education courses for investment professionals from Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Citizens Bank and is the advisor to Darden Capital Management, Darden’s student-run investment funds. He has been the recipient of a Santander Research Fellowship at Cambridge University, a Senior Research Fellowship at the Long-Term Investors think tank at the Università di Torino, and he has served as a visiting faculty member at Nova Universidade de Lisboa.  He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemistry from the University of Utah and a master’s degree and doctorate in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Andrew Berkin, Ph.D., is director of research and oversees the development and implementation of Bridgeway’s statistically driven, evidence-based efforts. Andrew joined Bridgeway in 2013. Prior to joining Bridgeway, Andrew was co-chief investment officer and director of research for Vericimetry Advisors. He previously was a senior member and director of the quantitative research group at First Quadrant, where he spent 14 years in a variety of responsibilities, including the development and implementation of stock selection models in both taxable and tax-exempt portfolios primarily for institutions.

Andrew earned his Bachelor of Science with honors in physics from the California Institute of Technology and a Doctor of Philosophy in physics from the University of Texas, where he concentrated his studies in general relativity and astrophysics. Andrew also serves on the editorial board of the Financial Analysts Journal.

Jim Kolari is the Director of the Global Corporate Banking Program in the Department of Finance at Texas A&M University.  He has taught financial institutions and markets classes there since 1980 and been active in international education, consulting, and executive education.  Receiving a PhD in Finance from Arizona Station University in 1980, he today holds the JP Morgan Chase Professorship in Finance in the Mays Business School.  In 1986 he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Helsinki and he Bank of Finland.  He has served as a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 1982-1983, Senior Research Fellow at the Swedish School of Business and

Economics (Hanken), Finland, and Faculty Fellow with the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, in addition to being a consultant to the U.S. Small Business Administration, American Bankers Association, Independent Bankers Association of America, and numerous banks and other organizations.  He has worked as an advisor on the North American Free Trade Agreement for the State of Texas, as a consultant for the Mexican government in financing technology, and as a member of the Academy of Sciences for Higher Education in Russia.  With over 100 articles published in refereed journals, numerous other papers and monographs, 15 co-authored books, and over 100 competitive papers presented at academic conferences, he ranks in the top 1-2 percent of finance scholars in the United States, according to recently published guides of research productivity among finance professors.  His papers have appeared in such domestic and international journals as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Business, Review of Financial Studies, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Financial Research, Real Estate Economics, Journal of International Money and Finance, and the Scandinavian Journal of Economics.  Papers in Russian, Finnish, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish have appeared outside of the United States.  He is a co-author of leading college textbooks in introductory business, global business, and commercial banking courses.