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Julie Agnew (www.drjulieagnew.com) is the Richard C. Kraemer Term Professor of Business at William and Mary. She has won numerous teaching awards and enjoys nothing more than connecting William and Mary students to talented alumni, as well as helping them find their next career steps following college. Her research and consulting activities focus on the interplay between financial literacy and behavioral finance. She frequently presents her research at conferences around the world and has testified as an invited expert witness to the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions. Funded by nationally competitive research grants, her research has been featured in top journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis and Management Science. She is a member of the Pension Research Council Advisory Board of the Wharton School and is a TIAA Institute Fellow. She is also an Associate Investigator for the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR) in Australia. Dr. Agnew was the inaugural Director of the Boehly Center for Excellence in Finance from 2014 to 2016 and returned in 2023 as the Executive Faculty Director. She has blogged for the Wall Street Journal Experts Panel and Forbes and worked on projects with funding totaling over one million dollars from several competitive research grants. In 1991, Dr. Agnew earned a B.A. degree in Economics and a minor in Mathematics from the College of William and Mary. She spent the next year as a Fulbright Scholar to Singapore, where she co-authored a book examining strategic business opportunities in Asia. She received a Ph.D. in Finance from Boston College in 2001 and was a Senior Visiting Fellow at UNSW in Sydney, Australia in 2012. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she worked as an Analyst in investment banking for Salomon Brothers in New York City and as an Equity Research Associate for Vector Securities International in Chicago.

Dezire is a recent graduate of Virginia Tech (Class of 2018). She is originally from the Hampton Roads area, specifically the City of Newport News, where she spent the bulk of her life before transitioning to the Blacksburg area. Dezire shared, “Now that I am transitioning back to my hometown, I have the fortunate opportunity of joining the Mason community and working alongside you all!” Dezire is a lover of all things nature (except for bugs, my Achilles heel) and much enjoy hiking during my downtime.

Dezire joined the Boehly Team in May 2021.