A $100,000 gift from business leader David Downie (MS ’88, PhD ’95) to the Sauder School will support the Peter Lusztig PhD Program in Finance and ensure that Lusztig’s pioneering hard work lives on through the efforts of UBC’s finance PhD students, our future academic leaders.
Downie, who lives in New York and is the head of Market Risk North America at RBC, is passionate about finance and is engaging his fellow Finance PhD alumni to join him and contribute to this initiative.
The fund will support doctoral students in finance and pay tribute to Dean Emeritus Peter Lusztig, who passed away on January 26, 2014.
“Peter was the Dean when I started my PhD and his fingerprints were (and still are) all over the Finance Division. To me he exemplified excellence and integrity and this initiative is a wonderful tribute to his leadership.” said Downie.
Lusztig joined the Finance Division at the UBC Faculty of Commerce (now Sauder School) in 1957. Recruited by Professor Leslie Wong, he taught for several years before pursuing a doctorate in finance at Stanford University. Once he completed his PhD, Lusztig returned to UBC as a professor and, in 1968, was asked to chair the Finance Division. Nine years later, in 1977, he was named dean of the Faculty of Commerce, a position he held until 1991. Peter continued teaching in the Finance Division until his retirement in 1995.
The UBC PhD in Business Administration is an intensive, rigorous program for students interested in academic or research-oriented careers. While in residence at the Robert H. Lee Graduate School, doctoral students are trained in the process of scientific discovery, deep analysis and synthesis of research problems, and how to share their knowledge and findings.
