Jacob Thomas Appointed Williams Brothers Professor of Accounting and Finance

New Haven, Conn., December 8, 2004 - Yale University President Richard C. Levin has appointed Jacob Thomas the Williams Brothers Professor of Accounting and Finance at the Yale School of Management.

"This is an honor so well deserved," said Yale SOM dean Jeffrey E. Garten. "As a scholar and a teacher, Jake has made extraordinary contributions to the fields of finance and accounting."

Professor Thomas joined the Yale School of Management faculty in 2003. Prior to Yale SOM, he was the Ernst & Young Professor of Accounting and Finance at Columbia Business School and Chairman of its Accounting Division.

Over the last decade, Thomas’ teaching and research has focused on valuation issues, in particular, the relations among accounting information, current stock prices, and future returns. His recent work in the area of valuation has included ways of estimating the equity risk premium, the use of multiples for valuation, and building trading rules using accounting information. His research has been published in the top accounting and finance journals and honored with numerous research awards and grants, including the IBES Competition for International Valuation Research and the AICPA Notable Contributions to Accounting Literature Award.

Thomas has held editorial appointments at several academic journals including, The Accounting Review, The Journal of Accounting and Economics, Accounting Horizons, The Journal of Accounting, Auditing, and Finance, The Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, and Contemporary Accounting Research.

At Yale SOM, Professor Thomas currently teaches Financial Reporting and Financial Statement Analysis in the MBA program and has taught the Executive Program, Finance for Non-Financial Managers.