Faculty

Photo of Steven Frankel

Steven Frankel, Ph.D.

Academic Coordinator, Smith Scholars Program

Professor Steven Frankel received his Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago in 1997. Upon graduation, Professor Frankel joined the faculty at the American University of Paris, where he received the Board of Trustees Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2001. In 2003, Professor Frankel moved to Xavier where he teaches for the Department of Philosophy and Philosophy, Politics, and the Public (PPP). At Xavier, he established an international exchange program and a summer study program with the University of Paris. He also established a summer study program with the Jesuits at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem. In 2017, the Xavier student body selected Professor Frankel as the "Bishop Fenwick Teacher of the Year.”

CV/Résumé

Photo of R. Stafford Johnson

R. Stafford Johnson, Ph.D.

Director, Smith Center

R. Stafford Johnson is Director of the Smith Center and Professor of Finance at the Williams College of Business. Since receiving his Ph.D in Economics from the University of Kentucky in 1975, he has taught at Central Michigan University, Southern Illinois University, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and the University of Connecticut. He also was the Director for Research, Center for Public Affairs, University of Kentucky and Research Economist for the Center for Energy Research. At Xavier, he was department chair from 1988-1998, fund professor of the Xavier Student Investment Bond and Equity Funds from 2004 to 2010, and the Director of the Fifth-Third Trading Center from 2010-2011. In 2011 and 2015, he served as the Interim Dean of the Williams College of Business. His current research focuses on option pricing, fixed-income and debt management, efficient gambling markets, monetary theory, and international economics. He is the author of five monographs and seven books: Equity Markets and Analysis, Derivative Markets and Analysis, Options and Futures, Introduction to Derivatives, two editions of Bond Evaluation, Selection, and Management, and Debt Markets and Analysis. He has also authored or co-authored over 50 academic articles. Professor Johnson teaches undergraduate and MBA classes in investments, options and futures markets, debt markets, financial markets, and global finance. He was twice the recipient of the Delta Sigma Pi Teacher of the Year Award and recipient of the Williams College of Business MBA Teacher of Year Award.

CV/Résumé

Photo of Rachael Behr LaRose

Rachael Behr LaRose, Ph.D.

Associate Director of Thought Leadership and Research

Dr. Rachael Behr LaRose was born and raised in northern Indiana, and received her undergraduate education from Hillsdale College. At Hillsdale, she studied economics and political theory, with a minor in French. She then went on to graduate school at George Mason University, where she received her Ph.D. in economics, with special focus on political economy and economic sociology. She was also a Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

In her role at the Smith Center, Dr. LaRose's focus is on expanding the Center's research focus. She is responsible for the primary administration and oversight of the Smith Center’s events, programs, and initiatives which promote events related to thought leadership, intellectual contributions, and faculty/student research activities on topics and policies with a direct societal impact aligned with the Center’s mission. Such initiatives aim to enhance the visibility of the Smith Center in the Greater Cincinnati and Tri-State areas with respect to freedom-based solutions to social and economic issues.

Besides working as Associate Director in the Smith Center, Dr. LaRose has an appointment in the Department of Economics. At Xavier University, Dr. LaRose teaches Macroeconomic and Microeconomic Principles, Natural Resource Economics, and Markets and Morality. Dr. LaRose especially loves emphasizing the interdisciplinary nature of classroom studies, whether it be inflation or natural resources. Dr. LaRose researches questions of an interdisciplinary nature about markets and morality. Her work has been published by Cambridge, Journal of Institutional Economics, The Review of Austrian Economics, Studies in Comparative International Development, Public Choice, The Independent Review, and Routledge, and is currently under review at several journals. She is currently working on several projects on the economic consequences of COVID-19 policies, including the political incentives of mask mandates and situating pandemic entrepreneurship within the entrepreneurship literature.