Dr. Stephanie Yates earned her B.S. in Marketing, M.B.A. in Accounting and M.A. in International Economics from the University of Cincinnati. She earned her Ph.D. in Finance from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. She is also an Accredited Financial Counselor ® , a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER ™, and a Registered Financial Consultant ®
In 2004, Dr. Yates became the first director of the Hickey Financial Technology Center at Siena College in Loudonville, New York. From 2005-2006, Dr. Yates served as a clinical assistant professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In 2007, Dr. Yates joined the faculty of the Collat School of Business at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and earned tenure there in 2012. From 2014 to present, Dr. Yates has been actively involved in building, growing, and maintaining the UAB Regions Institute for Financial Education. This Institute aims to serve as a model for financial research and education in the Southeast and beyond. It provides year-round financial programs and services for the UAB community and beyond and hosts an annual Personal Finance Research Symposium each spring. In 2015, Dr. Yates became the first director of the Regions Institute for Financial Education. In 2016, the University Of Alabama Board Of Trustees named Dr. Yates the Regions Institute for Financial Education Endowed Professor.
She has published her research in journals such as Financial Management the International Real Estate Review, the Journal of Investing, the Journal of Personal Finance, the Journal of Real Estate Portfolio Management, and the Journal of Sustainable Real Estate. She is an associate editor for the Journal of Real Estate Literature and has served as a guest editor for the Journal of Property Investment and Finance and the International Journal of Housing Markets and Analysis. She has also served as an ad hoc reviewer for the European Journal of Operational Research, the International Review of Financial Analysis, the Journal of Financial Counseling, and Planning, Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance and Sustainable Cities and Society.
One of Dr. Yates’ key focus areas for teaching and research is financial inclusion.
• She and a colleague at Siena College were awarded a grant from Smith Barney to develop and facilitate a summer financial literacy program that served over 50 disadvantaged youth in the Albany, New York area.
• She received a grant from the Alabama Securities Commission to provide Investor Education workshops on the UAB campus and in the Birmingham community.
• She received a grant for developing a Freshman Learning Community (FLC) for the Collat School of Business that was anchored by a personal finance course that she developed and taught. The course also included a service learning component in which students delivered Junior Achievement personal finance curriculum to elementary school students.
• She was elected President of the Alabama Jump$tart Coalition – a non-profit organization that promotes financial literacy throughout the state of Alabama.
• Dr. Yates wrote a popular blog entitled “365 Days on a Budget”. In it, she applied business finance principles to everyday personal finance issues in an effort to find ways that she and others could save money and make better financial decisions.
• She chaired a Quantitative Literacy task force that considered quantitative issues facing Collat School of business students and financial issues facing Alabamians as a whole and suggested possible solutions as part of the Edge of Chaos competition.
• Dr. Yates spent six weeks in South Africa working at The University of Cape Town on a financial literacy research project through a Fulbright Specialist grant.
Dr. Yates has also consulted with both non-profit and for-profit entities in the areas of finance and accounting. She has conducted training for the National Urban League, Brasfield and Gorrie and Iberiabank on topics such as valuation, strategy and corporate communications. She has also written financial education curriculum for the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education and currently serves as the editor of The Standard.
Dr. Yates has received awards for her contributions, served on numerous committees and given several invited speeches. In 2016 she received the UAB President’s Award for Diversity and in 2017 she was awarded the A.G. Gaston Community Service Award. She currently serves on the Advisory Boards for Alabama Asset Building Coalition, ASFA Foundation, GEAR UP Alabama, GEAR UP Birmingham, Junior Achievement of Alabama, Single Mothers Empowerment Conference, Steel Magic Theatre, Terrific New Theater, TruFund Financial Services and UAB Campus Access and Campus Engagement.
