Taking stock of ASU professor’s responsible investing research

June 30, 2022

On the New York Stock Exchange trading floor on May 20, an Arizona State University professor stood on the familiar white balcony overlooking a crowd of visitors, media and NYSE members.

Sunil Wahal, the Jack D. Furst Professor of Finance at the W. P. Carey School of Business, was there to ring the closing bell and celebrate the launch of four exchange-traded funds (ETFs) he helped create with asset manager Avantis Investors, a unit of American Century. Group photo of people wearing business suits at a celebration for the launch of Avantis Investors four exchange-traded funds at the New York Stock Exchange. The New York Stock Exchange welcomed Avantis Investors in celebration of the launch of their four ETFs this year. To honor the occasion, Sunil Wahal, the Jack D. Furst Professor of Finance at the W. P. Carey School of Business and consultant to Avantis Investors, rang the closing bell on May 20. Andrew Karolyi (second from left in the back row) works with Wahal as an academic consultant to Avantis Investors. He's the Harold Bierman Jr. Distinguished Professor of Management and Charles Field Knight Dean of the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. Download Full Image

As the director of ASU’s Center for Responsible Investing, Wahal is an academic consultant to Avantis Investors, which uses cutting-edge research to deliver portfolios to various investors.

“ASU is an institution that has always supported research to help people,” says Wahal, “and the work I do in investment strategies and implementation has direct application in the real world.”

The Center for Responsible Investing will ensure the public can access research like Wahal's.

"We put it out in the public domain. Anybody can read it, and anybody can use it," he said. However, building something from research takes more than reading a scientific paper and replicating it.

"What Avantis does is take the best research out there and applies it and produces robust portfolio solutions that benefit people," Wahal says.

The center gives outside parties a central point of contact to use and advance ASU research for the public good and to help the university and its student body. The center’s goals also align with ASU’s Charter.

Three of Avantis’ newly launched ETFs are what Wahal refers to as "responsible" ETFs. That is because they allow people to invest in well-diversified portfolios of stocks according to their environmentally or socially conscious beliefs. At the same time, these ETFs tilt the broader market toward higher returns using academically rigorous methods, which have often been inaccessible to many individuals. They are designed in a highly scientific manner, leveraging cutting-edge academic research in financial science, including some of Wahal's work.

"The purpose is to be democratic," Wahal says. "So whoever wants to purchase Avantis' responsible ETFs — a small individual investor with particular preferences or a large institution fulfilling fiduciary obligations — can do so. Most importantly, investors do not have to pay extra to reflect their preferences and beliefs; the fees for responsible ETFs are identical to their sister portfolios.”

Shay Moser

Managing Editor, W. P. Carey School of Business

480-965-3963 shay.moser@asu.edu

ASU PhD candidate researches the creation, trade of marble Buddhist images into China

Beiyin Deng sits on the right facing away from the camera and is speaking with a craftsman.

It’s one thing to study the materials used in religious or ritual practices, but it’s another thing to study the material that makes up those items. That’s exactly what Arizona State University religious studies PhD candidate Beiyin Deng is researching for her dissertation. Deng is studying the circulation, transportation and trade of marble from Myanmar used to create Buddhist images. She ...

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ASU PhD candidate researches the creation, trade of marble Buddhist images into China

June 30, 2022

Deng is studying the circulation, transportation and trade of marble from Myanmar used to create Buddhist images. She focuses on the trade from Myanmar to China from the 1890s to the present day. Beiyin Deng sits on the right facing away from the camera and is speaking with a craftsman. Beiyin Deng (right) interviews a craftsman while conducting field research in China. Download Full Image

After earning her bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Fudan University in Shanghai and her master’s degree in religious studies from New York University, Deng spent three years away from academia and worked as a project assistant for interfaith projects, traveling across Southeast Asia and returning to China to work in the outbound tourism industry.

During her travels as an exchange student in Taiwan, her observation of and participation in many Buddhist activities made her curious about the engagement of religion with modernity and secularity in different cultural and social settings.

But it was during a trip to Myanmar in 2014 that really got her interested in the everyday practices of Buddhism and the interactions between Buddhism and politics in Myanmar society.

“From my perspective, these transnational, transcultural Buddhist material transactions challenge a lot of long-entrenched presumptions in Buddhist studies and area studies as they have fostered Buddhist connections that transcends many different identity vectors, including ethnicity, nationality and, most importantly, sectarian affiliation,” Deng said.

Beiyin Deng with white marble behind her. She is holding a pair of flip-flop shoes and is wearing a yellow dress.

Beiyin Deng is a PhD candidate studying the anthropology of religion.

Knowing that Juliane Schober, director of the Center for Asian Research and professor of religious studies in ASU’s School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, is a scholar of topics that interested her, Deng applied to the religious studies doctoral program at ASU.

“(Deng’s) work is innovative because it crosses many boundaries, disciplinary ones between religious studies, anthropology and history; regional ones between Southeast and East Asia; religious ones between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism; and ethnic ones between Myanmar and China,” said Schober, who is the chair for Deng’s dissertation. “I'm sure it will receive a lot of scholarly attention once the dissertation is completed.”

Since joining the doctoral program in 2016, Deng has traveled to the Chinese cities of Sichuan, Chongqing, Beijing, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Yunnan and now Ruili to conduct field research.

“The initial goal of these travels was, firstly, to locate the marble Buddha images that were conveyed by Chinese monastics from Myanmar to China between the 1890s and 1930s based on my previous archival research and, secondly, to observe their status of preservation at museums and Buddhist temples and sacred mountains and to collect materials about their biographies,” Deng said.

During her travels, she learned about the popular practice of donating marble Buddhist images from Myanmar to Buddhist temples across China from the 1980s to the early 2000s. She was also able to visit marble mines in Beijing, Hebei, and Sichuan in China, and the famous Chinese Buddhist image carving centers in Quyang and Hui’an.

“I chatted with Chinese marble quarry owners and workshop owners, observed the various properties of marble stones excavated from different locations and listened to people’s interpretations of these properties and their differences,” Deng said. “These experiences have enriched my knowledge of the Buddhist image market in China, enabled me to compare the raw materials with those from Myanmar and deepened my understanding of the enchantment that Burmese marble provokes among Chinese Buddhists.”

Deng is currently conducting field research in Ruili, China, which opened its borders in early June of this year.

“I had waited for this opportunity since I arrived in China last August,” Deng said. “I am really excited to return to the neighborhood that I used to conduct research on before the pandemic."

After completing this stage of her fieldwork, she plans to visit Beijing for additional archival research before returning to the U.S. to finish writing her dissertation.