Carnegie Mellon University
December 20, 2011

Press Release: BNY Mellon Announces $1 Million Gift to Extend Finance Professorship

Contact: Mark Burd / 412-268-3486 / mdburd@andrew.cmu.edu    

PITTSBURGH—BNY Mellon, the global leader in investment management and investment services, has announced an award of $1 million to the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University to continue funding for a named professorship in the field of finance.

The BNY Mellon Professorship in Finance was established in 1996 to further research, teaching and collaboration across academic disciplines that will provide meaningful results for students and the global marketplace. The gift extends this professorship for another decade and signals BNY Mellon's commitment to excellence in research and education.

 "We are grateful for the support of BNY Mellon, an institution similar to Carnegie Mellon in terms of having historically rich ties to the Pittsburgh region along with a global footprint and worldwide reputation for excellence," said Robert Dammon, dean of the Tepper School of Business.

"We hope this investment will allow the Tepper School to continue to maximize the depth and quality of the school's finance faculty," said James P. McDonald, head of global philanthropy and employee programs for BNY Mellon.

The BNY Mellon Professorship in Finance was initially held by Chester Spatt (1996-2008), who is currently the Pamela R. and Kenneth B. Dunn Professor of Finance and director of the Center for Financial Markets at the Tepper School. Professor Spatt is a well-known scholar studying financial economics with broad interests in financial markets and also served chief economist of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and director of its Office of Economic Analysis (2004-2007).

Since 2008, the chair has been held by Duane Seppi, professor of financial economics and head of the Master of Science in Computational Finance Program, which was recently ranked the No. 1 financial engineering program in the world by Quantnet, a leading trade news outlet in the field. Professor Seppi joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon in 1986 and has held visiting appointments at the University of Vienna, Nanyang Technological University and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

In addition to teaching, Professor Seppi's highly respected and often-cited research focuses on five areas of finance: the economics of the trading process, proxy voting, commodities, behavioral finance on investor attention and option pricing stocks with stochastic volatility.

Carnegie Mellon recognizes the prestige of having a chair named and supported by BNY Mellon, one of the country's leading financial services companies, with a strong legacy and current presence in Western Pennsylvania. BNY Mellon employs more than 7,800 in the Pittsburgh region, an increase of more than 1,700 since 2008.

About BNY Mellon
BNY Mellon's global corporate social responsibility program focuses on strong governance, comprehensive reporting, employee engagement and diversity, community support, environmental sustainability and supply chain responsibility. As part of this focus, the company's Community Partnership program supports employee volunteer efforts and matches employee contributions, and its Powering Potential philanthropic efforts help meet basic needs and promote workforce development. For more information, visit www.bnymellon.com/csr

BNY Mellon is a global financial services company focused on helping clients manage and service their financial assets, operating in 36 countries and serving more than 100 markets. BNY Mellon is a leading provider of financial services for institutions, corporations and high-net-worth individuals, offering superior investment management and investment services through a worldwide client-focused team. It has $25.9 trillion in assets under custody and administration and $1.2 trillion in assets under management, services $11.9 trillion in outstanding debt and processes global payments averaging $1.6 trillion per day. BNY Mellon is the corporate brand of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation (NYSE: BK). Additional information is available on www.bnymellon.com or follow us on Twitter @BNYMellon.

About the Tepper School of Business — Founded in 1949, the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University (www.tepper.cmu.edu) is a pioneer in the field of management science and analytical-decision making. The school's notable contributions to the intellectual community include eight Nobel laureates. The school is among those institutions with the highest rate of academic citations in the fields of finance, operations research, organizational behavior and production/operations. The academic offerings of the Tepper School include undergraduate studies in business and economics, graduate studies in business administration and financial engineering, and doctoral studies.

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