Russ Hamilton is a clinical professor of accounting at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. His academic interests include the impact of taxation on corporate decision making as well as tax avoidance/earnings management.Prior to earning is PhD from the University of Arizona, Russ was an M&A partner in Deloitte Tax LLP specializing in the tax aspects of merger integration and carve out transactions. His responsibilities included assisting clients deal with the tax and operational challenges that exist after the transaction closed. His formative years were spent in Deloitte's New York-based merger and acquisition service group, focused primarily on structuring and due diligence work, but he later focused exclusively on tax integration and separation matters. He also has extensive experience in legal entity simplification / legal entity rationalization.