I am a vice president and senior economist in the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta with responsibility for leading the financial research economics team. In this role, I serve as advisor to the president and research director on economic matters, oversee the finance economists, and participate in decisions regarding the strategic direction of the research department.My research concentrates on estimating mutual fund performance, probability of default, and stochastic volatility. In recognition of this research, I received the 2012 Arnold Zellner Award for my paper entitled, "Bayesian Semiparametric Stochastic Volatility Modeling," as the most significant paper published in the Journal of Econometrics in 2010 and the 2016 Best Paper Award for my paper "Robust Estimation of Nonstationary, Fractionally Integrated, Autoregressive, Stochastic Volatility," as the best paper published in Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics.I have been heavily involved with the Federal Reserve System's Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review annual stress tests, as a member of the risk evaluation team that validates and reviews bank holding companies’ loss forecasting models of their retail holdings. In addition, I was a member of the Federal Reserve’s Model Validation Group, where I helped validate the Federal Reserve's asset-backed security models.Before joining the Bank in 2005, I was an associate professor in the department of economics at Brigham Young University from 2001 to 2005. Before that I was an assistant professor at the University of Missouri and Southern Illinois University–Carbondale.I am an associate editor of the Journal of Empirical Finance. I am also the past chair of the Economics, Finance, and Business Section of the International Society of Bayesian Analysis, and a senior fellow at the Remini Center for Economic Analysis. In the past I served as president and treasurer of the Society for Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics and was a member of its executive committee. I also served on the advisory board of the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for Research. My published works include articles in the Journal of Econometrics, Econometric Theory, the Journal of Monetary Economics, and the Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, and I have presented my research at a number of professional conferences and academic institutions.I earned my BA in economics, magna cum laude, from Weber State University, and my MA and PhD in economics from Washington University in St. Louis.