Personal Financial Planning

Ph.D. Student Research

Program Director: Stuart J. Heckman

A Ph.D. is a research degree, meaning that an interest in academia or other type of research career is an important element of pursuing the degree. As one of three Ph.D. programs registered with the Certified Financial Planning Board of Standards, students receive a robust education in financial planning in addition to their research training. Take a look of some of the recent work of our students and recent graduates.

2023 Opportunity Days Research & Development Symposium Poster Competition

The PhD student poster competition brought forth proposals at various stages of completion. Poster submissions included those in the initial stages of development with a solid framework, supporting literature, and planned methods as well as work from a nearly complete dissertation.

Students designed their own posters and gave a three-minute oral presentation for a panel of judges who were invited to ask the students questions about their work. We had two categories of awards this year:

• Best Research
• Best Presentation

The competition was tight with the awards going to:

• Nasima Khatun for Best Research. What Factors Determine Your “Financial Skill?” A Truncated Regression Model to Find Answers
• Mikel Van Cleve, CFP®, FBS®, CEBS for Best Presentation. Financial Infidelity in Families with Stepchildren

Other participants included:

• Ohireime Ojeomogha. College students' TikTok use and investigating the financial literacy outcomes
• Tanaka Chimbane. Internal locus of control and retirement worry
• Turner Amacher. Trading frequency amongst retail investors
• Van Dihn. Factors impact digital financial consumer protection: Evidence from 135 countries
• Vikesh Kumar, MBA. Retail Investors' ESG beliefs and Crypto assets ownership in the portfolios

Recent Student Awards

Patrick Tito Buah-Bassuah, MS, MBA. 2022 Financial Service Professionals Career Exploration Competition - 1st Place.

Vikesh Kumar, MBA. 2023 Outstanding Doctoral Research Award.

Dilruba Sharmin Moutusi, MBA. Selected for the 2023-2024 TEACH program through TTU Graduate School.

Recent Student Publications

*indicates the author is a current student

Lacombe, D. J., & Khatun, N.* (2022). What are the determinants of financial well‐being? A Bayesian LASSO approach. American Journal of Economics and Sociology. DOI: 10.1111/ajes.12489

Van Cleve, M.*, & Klontz, B. (2022). The psychology of estate planning with blended families. Journal of Financial Planning. https://www.financialplanningassociation.org/learning/publications/journal/AUG22-psychology-estate-planning-blended-families-OPEN

Aziz, T., Marwat, J., Mustafa, S., Kumar, V.*, & Al-Haddad, L. (2021). Reassessment of Volatility Transmission Among South Asian Equity Markets. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 8(1), 587–597. https://doi.org/10.13106/JAFEB.2021.VOL8.NO1.587

Aziz, T., Marwat, J., Mustafa, S., & Kumar, V.* (2020). Impact of economic policy uncertainty and macroeconomic factors on stock market volatility: Evidence from Islamic Indices. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 7(12), 683–692.  https://doi.org/10.13106/JAFEB.2020.VOL7.NO12.683

Kumar, V.*, Bhayo, M. U., Kumar, S., Kumar, R., & Dakhan, S. A. (2020). Faysal asset management mutual funds performance evaluation. Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies, 10(4). https://doi.org/10.1108/EEMCS-05-2020-0137

Kumar, A., Kalhoro, M. R., Kumar, R., Ghumro, N. H., Dakhan, S. A., & Kumar, V.* (2020). Decomposing the effect of domestic and foreign economic policy uncertainty shocks on real and financial sectors: Evidence from BRIC Countries. Journal of Risk Financial Management, 13(12), 315.

Khatun, N.*, & Tamanna, M. (2020). Factors affecting the adoption of fintech: A study based on the financial institutions in Bangladesh. Copernican Journal of Finance & Accounting, 9(4), 51-75. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12775/CJFA.2020.021

Khatun, N.*, & Saha, D. (2019). Factors affecting equity return during corporate declaration. Research Journal of Finance and Accounting, 10(16), 54-59. DOI: 10.7176/RJFA

Chawla V. K., Kumar, V.*, et al. (2018). Determinants of investment trading behaviors in Pakistan. Sukkur IBA Journal of Economics and Finance, 2(1), 78-100.  https://doi.org/10.30537/SIJEF.V2I1.203                    

Khatun, N.* (2018). Performance assessment of demutualization of Bangladesh stock market. European Journal of Business and Management, 10(12), 174-190.

Media Contributions

Brendan Pheasant, CFP(R), ChFC

• https://www.thecut.com/article/how-to-deal-with-inflation-creep.html 
• https://wallethub.com/blog/financial-new-years-resolutions/9202#expert=Brendan_Pheasant

Alumni News

Sonya Lutter, Ph.D., CFP®, LMFT 

• TTU School of Financial Planning, Distinguished Alumni Award in 2023.