Research environment

The SAF has world class researchers in all fields of accounting or finance and research methodologies. Whatever your research interest, there is an excellent faculty member in that area to work with at UW.

Tim Bauer, PhD 2011

At Waterloo, we strive to create an outstanding and collegial research environment for our PhD students. Some of the opportunities for development include the following:

  • Weekly seminar series
  • Emphasis on formal research assistantships
  • Brown bag lunches
  • Opportunities to present to faculty

Weekly seminar series

PhD seminar
Every Friday we hold a workshop that is open to all faculty and PhD students. These seminars provide students with a wonderful orientation to research and exposure to a wide variety of topics. They also provide our students with the opportunity to meet with faculty from other universities.

See the schedule for the research seminar series.

Emphasis on formal research assistantships

Funding support is contingent on working 10 hours per week throughout the year as a research assistant. Every year, students are matched with faculty members based on the student’s research interests and skills, and the faculty member's needs. The goal of the assignment is for the student to obtain a valuable apprenticeship and the faculty member to receive valuable research assistance.

Brown bag lunches

Faculty and PhD students meet once per week in the fall and winter terms to discuss early stage research projects.  This is a great way to learn about the evolution of research projects. 

Opportunities to present to faculty

PhD seminar
Students have several opportunities to present their work to the faculty. At the end of the first year, students present a summer research paper. Although expectations are moderate since this is an early project, some students' projects have later developed into promising working papers. In addition to the PhD Proposal and Defence, students are also welcome to present additional work-in-progress, to gain experience presenting and to obtain valuable feedback from faculty and students.