Rangarajan K. Sundaram

Biography

Raghu Sundaram is Dean and the Edward I. Altman Professor of Credit and Debt Markets at New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business. He was appointed Dean on January 1, 2018, having previously served as Vice Dean for MBA Programs and Online Learning from January 1, 2016, to December 31, 2017.

As Dean, and previously Vice Dean, Dean Sundaram has led Stern to historic annual fundraising levels and increases in financial aid; record incoming class metrics and job placement statistics; the launch of many new degree programs and the expansion of Stern’s global footprint; Stern’s entry into online education; and the establishment of several new, high-profile initiatives, particularly at the intersection of business, entrepreneurship, and technology. He also established the School’s first Office of Diversity and Inclusion.

Dean Sundaram’s academic work in finance spans a number of areas including agency problems, executive compensation, corporate finance, derivatives pricing, and credit risk and credit derivatives. He has also published extensively in mathematical economics, decision theory, and game theory. His research has appeared in leading academic journals in finance and economics, as well as in several practitioner-oriented journals. He is the author of two books: A First Course in Optimization Theory (Cambridge University Press, 1996) and Derivatives: Principles and Practice (McGraw-Hill, 2010).

Dean Sundaram has taught courses across Stern’s Undergraduate, MBA, PhD, and Executive Education programs. Of all the awards he has received over the years, he is most proud of being the inaugural recipient of Stern’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2007. He has a long record of service to the School and the University, including as chair of the Tenured and Tenure-track Faculty Senators Council and as a member of NYU’s Presidential Search Committee in both 2014 and 2023. Dean Sundaram currently serves as a member of the Academic Council of Krea University and Advisory Council of Shiv Nadar University Delhi-NCR, both in India, and the Advisory Board of the Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Beijing, China.

Prior to joining NYU Stern in 1996, Dean Sundaram was on the faculty of the University of Rochester from 1988-96. He received a bachelor of arts degree in economics from the University of Madras, India, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, and a PhD in economics from Cornell University.

Research Interests

• Derivatives: equity, interest-rate, & credit-risk
• Agency & executive compensation
• Corporate finance
• Other finance
• Dynamic & stochastic games
• Optimal learning & bandit problems
• Other game theory, economics, & dynamic programming

Courses Taught

• Derivatives Pricing
• Risk-Management

Academic Background

Ph.D., Economics, 1988
Cornell University

M.A., Economics, 1987
Cornell University

M.B.A., Operations, 1984
Indian Institute of Management, Ahemedabad, India

B.A., Economics, 1982
University of Madras, India