Laura T. Starks holds the George Kozmetsky Centennial Chair and is a professor of finance in the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on sustainable finance, global financial strategies, and other finance topics. Starks team-teaches a global Ph.D. class on the financial economics of climate and sustainability, and she has served the school as interim dean, associate dean for research, chair of the Department of Finance, and graduate adviser.

Starks’ current research focuses on investor expectations, retirement investment, institutional investors, and shareholder engagement, as well as sustainable finance issues including climate finance. She is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research; a senior fellow of the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research; and a fellow of the American Finance Association, the Financial Management Association, the European Corporate Governance Institute, and the Centre for Economic Policy Research. Starks has received a number of research and teaching awards. Most recently, she received the 2022 Swedish Skandia Research Award on Long-Term Savings for contributions to the field of banking, insurance, and financial services, and the 2021 Moskowitz Prize for Outstanding Research in Sustainable Finance.

Starks has served as president of four major academic finance associations: the American Finance Association, the Society for Financial Studies, the Western Finance Association, and the Financial Management Association. She has also been an editor of The Review of Financial Studies and an associate editor of many journals.

She has previously served on boards and committees for mutual funds, pension funds, and the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund. Currently, she serves on advisory committees for AIF Global, FTSE Russell, the Investment Company Institute, Kroner Center for Financial Research, Netspar, Principles for Responsible Investing, and Texas Wall Street Women.

Starks earned a B.A. in sociology from The University of Texas at Austin, an MBA from The University of Texas at San Antonio, and a Ph.D. in finance from UT Austin.