As vice dean of faculty affairs and research, Wei Jiang brings a career of scholarship and service to advancing Goizueta’s research mission.
Wei Jiang likes to say she’s experienced nearly every corner of business school in her academic career. In her 20 years at Columbia University, she went from young researcher to serving on a provost advisory committee—barring one year spent teaching at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.
In 2022, Jiang joined Goizueta Business School as the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Finance.
“Since I got tenure at Columbia University, I haven’t had a single down year in school or university service. I’m always in some role,” says Jiang, who also serves as Goizueta’s vice dean of faculty affairs and research. “I have done everything that a faculty member could do in terms of institutional service.”
The Columbia University Era
Jiang experienced the full career arc of a faculty member at Columbia—beginning as an assistant professor the same year she earned her PhD and leaving the university as an endowed chair professor who held numerous leadership positions within the business school and broader university.
Jiang describes the first few years of a faculty member’s career as primarily focused on research. Days after receiving tenure, however, she was asked to serve as the inaugural faculty director for Columbia Business School’s master of finance program. She helped launch the program, led it through accreditation, and ushered in its first cohort of students.
The next invitation was to serve as department chair for a term; a few years later, she became director of the Chazen Institute for Global Business at Columbia. After these successful roles, she was approached to be the vice dean of curriculum, teaching, and programs.
“I did not ask for these roles, but they’re roles you naturally phase into. It’s a good thing, because it means people trust you, and that you’ve developed the capability as well as institutional knowledge to be fair and effective in that role,” explains Jiang, who has held numerous leadership positions for finance-related organizations, including currently serving as the president of the American Finance Association. She’s also been the president of the Society of Financial Studies and held editorial roles at top academic journals.
The invitations kept coming, and if the other side felt I was a good fit, I trusted their call. I think it’s part of my job to serve my institution and the profession in certain ways.
Wei Jiang, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Finance & Vice Dean of Faculty Affairs and Research
In her role as vice dean of curriculum, teaching, and programs, Jiang gained exposure to the thought processes and needs of students, staff, and faculty. She strongly believes that no one part of a university is more important than another; without any one of them, the others would collapse.
“I developed the habit of thinking through multiple lenses while staying grounded as a faculty member,” she recalls.
Whether she’s working with students, staff, or faculty, her background has given her the tools to understand what motivates each group and what matters most to them. That “360-degree picture,” as Jiang calls it, is essential to her approach to leadership and decision-making.
In her final role at Columbia, Jiang served on the provost’s faculty advisory committee.
“Each role gave me a bigger platform and more responsibility,” says Jiang. “The invitations kept coming, and if the other side felt I was a good fit, I trusted their call. I think it’s part of my job to serve my institution and the profession in certain ways.”
An Advocate and Colleague
Serving the school is exactly what she’s doing at Goizueta. To Jiang, faculty play a crucial role at universities as “creators and transmitters of knowledge.” Students, as consumers of knowledge, seek to learn from these masters.
“Research is a primary mission of faculty. We are a premier research institution because our faculty conduct frontier research, making them masters of their domains,” says Jiang.
Jiang’s role as vice dean of faculty affairs and research supports faculty at all stages of their careers. Her position is unique in that she is both a member of the faculty and a leader for them.
I need to be continuously engaged in cutting-edge research so that I am setting an example that our value lies in fundamental and long-horizon research.
Wei Jiang
“I strive to continue being a creator of knowledge in the domain of finance, but as a manager of research, I’m also a privileged consumer of knowledge across the whole school,” says Jiang.
Jiang’s background allows her to help her colleagues in different ways based on where they are in their careers. For example, she believes junior faculty should focus on research and “establishing themselves as an emerging force in a given domain.” On the other end of the spectrum, tenured or senior faculty have the privilege of taking more risks with their research and are often asked to provide services to the community, whether that community be within Goizueta, Emory, the greater Atlanta area, or their professional associations at a global scale.
“The role has given me motivation, making me work harder than ever. I need to be continuously engaged in cutting-edge research so that I am setting an example that our value lies in fundamental and long-horizon research. We also want to translate this research to the practical world, to the business world, as well as pass along this knowledge base in various forms to our students.”
Research is a primary mission of faculty. We are a premier research institution because our faculty conduct frontier research, making them masters of their domains.
Wei Jiang
While Jiang’s time is largely spent on administrative work or her own research, she still teaches seminars and workshops for PhD students. In the fall, she attended Goizueta’s Doctoral Research Conference and recalls not being able to tell which program the presenting students came from, due to the interdisciplinary nature of their work.
She has since encouraged her faculty colleagues to follow the lead of this next generation of researchers—and she’s setting the stage. In a recent research paper, Jiang is one of four authors, all of whom hold doctorates in different disciplines.
“Artificial intelligence is reshaping the whole world—jobs, research, and the way we work. You’re now seeing colleagues from different disciplines working on closely related topics. This makes us better producers, consumers, and teachers of research,” says Jiang.
For Jiang, being a faculty leader is inseparable from being a faculty member. “I want to support faculty research and development while remaining grounded as a scholar and a colleague,” says Jiang.
Faculty research at Goizueta is solving the business challenges of today and shaping the business landscape of the future. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta.
