In the last couple of years, AFFECT matured as an organization, with a set of established efforts that are expected to be repeated annually in years to come. These initiatives include (i) mentoring, (ii) grants to support networking and mentoring events, and (iii) departmental demographic survey. In 2024, much of the committee’s effort has been focused on perfecting and expanding these initiatives, as well as the processes and networks that support them.
In 2024, AFFECT had a new Director of Mentoring Veronika Pool who took over after a successful two-year tenure in the role by Michelle Lowry. Under Veronika’s leadership, AFFECT hosted one mentoring event that included 49 participants and five senior women as workshop speakers. More mentoring events are in the planning stage for the next year.
We received 58 applications for the in-person one-day mentoring event hosted by AFFECT ahead of the 2025 AFA. This represented a 36% decline relative to the prior year. The number of accepted mentees remained at 36 and the number of mentors remained at 12.
In the spring of 2024, AFFECT issued its third annual call for funding proposals for supplementary funds to support research-oriented events and other activities that promote gender equality in the academic finance profession and align with AFFECT’s Mission. AFFECT was able to provide funding for seven proposals. Three of these events were outside of U.S. We also started to collect a brief summary of the impact of funded events.
In 2024, with the generous support from the Journal of Financial Economics, AFFECT awarded one grant to a research proposal that involved collecting new data on the costs of showing emotions in academia.
In 2024, we produced a report based on the second Academic Finance Department Survey that was conducted in the fall of 2023.
In January 2025, the committee will also welcome six new members of the Advisory Board: Markus Brunnermeier, Anna Kovner, Kai Li, Juliana Salomao, David Scharfstein, and Pietro Veronesi.
Over the past year, a number of AFFECT committee members served different roles on AFA committees: Ayako Yasuda on the AFA Climate Survey Committee, CORD, and the AFA Nominating Committee; Anna Pavlova on the AFA Nominating Committee and the Fischer Black Prize committee; Laura Field on CORD; and Kai Li as director of the AFA board.
The AFFECT Data and Drinks reception is scheduled for 1/3/2025. Cornerstone is the generous and supportive sponsor of the event.In January 2025, the committee will welcome two new members: Diane Del Guercio (Oregon) and Simi Kedia (Rutgers), and say goodbye to two members: Victoria Ivashina and Kai Li.