Prof. Vera Chau tells us more about her youth, studies, interests, and current research in the interview below. 

Where did you grow up?
I grew up on a tropical island called Guam before moving to Woodbury, Minnesota. My family is very good with extreme weather. 

What were your hobbies as a child? 
I played a lot of sports growing up (volleyball, basketball, soccer). When we lived on Guam, we used to go to the beach every Sunday. I also read a lot and watched a ton of TV.   

What languages do you speak?
English and Chinese. I took French in school for years but I'm now confronted with how bad my French is on a daily basis. I'm working on it. 

Where did you go to University?
New York University

Where did you do your PhD?  
Booth School of Business, University of Chicago

Who were your PhD Advisors?
Amir Sufi (the most thoughtful academic you'll ever meet), Lars Peter Hansen (never too busy for students), Steven Kaplan (always replies to emails immediately which current grad students will appreciate). I also had a lot of help from Pascal Noel and Constantine Yannelis who are both incredibly generous with their knowledge and experience. 

Any anecdote or memory from your time as PhD?
The third floor of the Harper center has this atrium looking out onto the winter garden below. We would often take laps around that atrium when we needed a break or wanted to talk through a problem. You'd often find other PhD students doing the same thing and it was a strange but amazing way to work through problems in our research or just talk about nothing in particular.  

What is your main research focus?
My research interests are corporate finance and innovation, especially in applications to the energy sector. I also study household and real estate finance. I do both empirical and theoretical work and I really enjoy playing with new methods.  

What research are you working on right now that you are really excited about and why?
I'm working on applying heterogeneous firm models to understand the impact of innovation and diffusion of new technology on economic growth. This idea was motivated by trying to understand important drivers of the energy transition into renewable energy. Firms of different sizes and different stages in the life-cycle make different decisions to retire their old technology and adopt new technology or to invest in innovative activity like research. However, these firms also operate in the same market with the same prices for their products and their inputs so the distribution of firms in the economy can have an important impact on the transition dynamics of new technology. There could also be spillovers from intangible capital accumulation such as human capital and shared knowledge which further complicate this question. 

What is the next financial problem you plan to work on? 
On the real estate front, I'm studying the effect of the changing composition of owners in the US housing market. In particular, I'm looking at institutional investors as well as non owner-occupied properties.  I'm also looking to dive into heterogeneous firm versions of corporate finance models. The existing heterogeneous firm models have focused on important economic decisions made by firms such as investment and hiring. However, firms also face heterogeneous external and internal financing frictions while accessing the same capital markets.  On the energy front, I'm in the process of gathering a comprehensive, project-level dataset of renewable energy firms and electric utilities to understand how differences in financing (ex: utilities can be investor or municipal owned) impact the rate of technological change in these important sectors.  

Tell us something exciting that happened to you in the last five years? 
The Minneapolis miracle (an epic sports comeback for my football team, the Minnesota Vikings). I also got married this summer.   

What do you do in your spare time?
I still read a lot and I play the guitar. My goal now that I live in Switzerland is to become a much better skier. 

What is your favorite holiday destination?
When I lived in the States, I loved coming to Europe… now I have to discover where Europeans go for holiday! 

Who is your all-time hero or heroine and why?  
JRR Tolkien. He was an academic who was fearless in pursuing the work he was passionate about, even if other academics did not always agree with its value. He was also simultaneously a perfectionist and unafraid to admit mistakes and revise his work.  

What is your favorite book/movie? 
See last question. I watch the trilogy probably once every few months and I'm currently re-reading "The Silmarillion" (I've lost count of how many times I've read it).