Hua Zhao is a Full Professor and Doctoral Supervisor at the School of Economics, Xiamen University. He also serves as Director of the Investment and Risk Management Research Section in the Department of Statistics and Data Science. Professor Zhao holds a Ph.D. in Economics and completed postdoctoral training in Finance at Peking University and Financial Econometrics at Duke University. He has served as a Senior Visiting Scholar at the University of South Carolina and as a Visiting Professor at the University of Southern California. He is also a Founding Member of the Society for Financial Econometrics (SoFiE).
After receiving his Ph.D. from the Department of Planning and Statistics (now Department of Statistics and Data Science) at Xiamen University in 2005, Professor Zhao joined the university’s Department of Finance as a faculty member the same year. He was appointed Master’s Supervisor in Investment in 2006, promoted to Associate Professor in Investment in 2008, and granted accelerated promotion to Full Professor of Statistics in 2011. In 2012, he was appointed Doctoral Supervisor in Statistics. In 2014, he was selected for the Fujian Province Support Program for Outstanding Talents of the New Century in Higher Education Institutions.
Professor Zhao has long been engaged in teaching and research in financial econometrics, asset pricing, and quantitative investment. He has published dozens of scholarly articles in journals such as Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Finance Research Letters, International Review of Economics and Finance, Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Journal of Financial Research (Chinese Journal), Statistical Research (Chinese Journal), Journal of Quantitative & Technical Economics (Chinese Journal), and Systems Engineering—Theory & Practice (Chinese Journal).
He has served as Principal Investigator for numerous nationally competitive research projects funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the National Social Science Foundation of China (NSSFC), the Humanities and Social Sciences Fund of the Ministry of Education of China, the Research Start-up Fund for Returned Scholars from the Ministry of Education of China, and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (First Class).
Professor Zhao has received multiple competitive academic honors, including the First Prize of the 11th Fujian Provincial Awards for Outstanding Statistical Research Achievements; the First Prize for Outstanding Papers from the Fujian Finance Society (2009); Second and Third Prizes in the 7th and 8th Fujian Provincial Awards for Outstanding Statistical Research Achievements; Second and Third Prizes in the 6th and 7th Xiamen Municipal Awards for Outstanding Social Science Achievements; the Xiamen University “China Construction Bank” Research Award; the Xiamen University “Pan Maoyuan” Award; and the Xiamen University “Tan Kah Kee” Award.