Spencer Martin

It is with great sadness we learnt that J. Spencer Martin, Professor of Finance at the University of Melbourne and Vice President of FIRN, has suddenly passed away. We have lost a prolific academic, a critical thinker, an unconditional motivator, as well as a lifelong mentor to many colleagues and students. Prior to joining the University of Melbourne in 2009, Spencer had been a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon, Arizona State University and Ohio State, as well as a visiting professor at the University of Virginia. His college career started at the University of Texas at Austin, where he set records as a 3-time NCAA All American swimmer, graduated with highest honours with a bachelor's degree in mathematics, and then received his MBA in Information Systems Management. Afterwards, he earned his PhD from the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania. Spencer's plenteous and piercing research spanned investments and empirical asset pricing to behavioural finance and can be found in the top journals. He had a rare talent of combining a penchant for literary and whimsical phrases with brilliant scientific thinking. His meticulous research and incisive feedback have been cited widely in papers, presentations, over drinks and at dinners. For many years, Spencer organised the National PhD Classes and the Master Classes in Finance that are offered by the Australia-wide FIRN programme. His work has moved the discipline forward and has created a long-lasting legacy. He is survived by his father and his sister, as well as by many colleagues in Australia, the United States and Europe. And he will be missed dearly by his numerous current and former students - all over the world - with whom he spent many an hour discussing their work, paying for their drinks and dinners, and teaching them perhaps one of the key principles in life: you don't pay back, you pay forward.