When faculty benefit from enhanced funding, their students benefit too.
Associate Professor of Finance Huan Cai is one of many Cornell College professors who participate in the Cornell Summer Research Institute because of endowment funding through the Thayer-Delahooke Faculty Fund, established in 2008 by the late Keith Thayer ’51 and his wife Nancy Delahooke Thayer ’52. Keith Thayer was a Cornell Trustee and longtime University of Iowa dental school professor.
Because of her Thayer-Delahooke award, Cai was able to work with two students and a colleague during the 2024 Cornell Summer Research Institute. Their timely project addressed “The Impact of AI Within the Workforce.”
Moreover, it will benefit future students in her classes.
“These projects also help me rethink the content I cover in class, revising them from time to time to include the most updated technology and professional skills that help students remain competitive in the job market,” says Cai. She and her students will continue researching AI’s implications on equity valuations in the finance industry during the Cornell Summer Research Institute.
Cai considers it a luxury, she says, to conduct student-faculty collaborative research in the summer, something the Thayer-Delahooke Faculty Fund allowed her to do.
She maintains an active professional life, submitting and presenting research and engaging in professional development. All of it enhances her teaching.
Cai joined Cornell as a visiting assistant professor in 2013. After returning to China for a few years to teach and develop her field of research on behavioral finance, she came back to the Hilltop in 2022. She says she missed Cornell’s liberal arts environment and its students.
“What I like about Cornell students is their integrity, collaborative engagement, consistent attendance, and remarkable openness to learning,” she says.