Yifei Mao joined the Finance Department at the Leavey School of Business in Fall 2025 as an Assistant Professor. Her research expertise lies in empirical corporate finance, with a focus on venture capital, entrepreneurship, innovation, and commercial real estate. Her work has been published in leading journals, including the Review of Financial Studies, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Accounting and Economics, and Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, among others. She has presented her research at top academic conferences such as NBER, WFA, and AFA.
Before joining Santa Clara University, Dr. Mao was an Assistant Professor of Finance at Cornell University, where she taught Introduction to Finance and Corporate Finance. She was a recipient of the Cornell Nolan School Ted Teng ’79 Dean’s Teaching Excellence Award. Dr. Mao earned her B.A. in Economics from Tsinghua University, M.A. in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, and Ph.D. in Finance from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University Bloomington.