Texas Tech University

Best Interest Initiative

Research Team

Russell N. James III, J.D., Ph.D., CFP®

Russell N. James III, J.D., Ph.D., CFP®

Russell James is a professor in the Department of Personal Financial Planning at Texas Tech University. He directs the on-campus and online graduate program in Charitable Financial Planning. Additionally, he teaches Charitable Gift Planning at the Texas Tech University School of Law. He graduated, cum laude, from the University of Missouri School of Law where he was a member of the Missouri Law Review. While in law school he received the United Missouri Bank Award for Most Outstanding Work in Gift and Estate Taxation and Planning. He also holds a Ph.D. in consumer economics from the University of Missouri, where his dissertation was on charitable giving.

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Charlene Kalenkoski, Ph.D., CFP®

Charlene Kalenkoski, Ph.D., CFP®

Dr. Kalenkoski is an Associate Professor in the Personal Financial Planning Department at Texas Tech University. In 2014 she became Co-Director of the Ph.D. Program in Personal Financial Planning and took over as Director in 2016. She has achieved national and international recognition for her publications in top journals, including but not limited to American Economic Review, Southern Economic Journal, Applied Economics, Labour Economics, and Journal of Population Economics. Her international reputation earned her the title of Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn, Germany in 2009, where she remains a fellow.

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