UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Abdullah Yavas, the Robert E. Wangard Real Estate Chair at the University of Wisconsin and a former member of the Penn State Smeal College of Business faculty, will deliver via Zoom the inaugural lecture in the Austin J. Jaffe Real Estate Lecture Series on April 6.
“We are very pleased to honor Austin’s legacy. The generous gift by his wife, Lynn, and children, Alex, and Roxanne to create the Austin Jaffe Real Estate Lecture Series will allow us to bring leading scholars from around the world to Penn State to share their expertise with our students — continuing Austin’s tradition of mentoring the next generation of scholars,” said Brent Ambrose, Jason and Julie Borrelli Faculty Chair in Real Estate and director of Smeal’s Institute for Real Estate Studies.
“We are very pleased that Abdullah will give the inaugural lecture. Professor Yavas is an internationally recognized expert in real estate and experimental economics and is a member of the Monetary Policy committee of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey," added Ambrose. "In addition, Professor Yavas was a long-time colleague of Austin’s, having started his academic career at Smeal in 1992.”
The lecture is planned for 2-4 p.m. on April 6. Attendees are asked to register in advance. After registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the lecture.
Yavas serves on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Wisconsin School of Business in the Department of Real Estate and Urban Land Economics. He served as department chair between 2012 and 2018.
His research interests include real estate brokerage, mortgage contracts, real estate auctions, economics of information, and experimental economics. He has authored or co-authored more than 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals on real estate, finance, and economics.
During Yavas’s time at Smeal, he was the Elliott Professor of Business Administration and the research director of the Institute for Real Estate Studies.
Jaffe enjoyed a nearly 40-year career at Penn State. Before his retirement in 2017, he was the associate dean for International Programs at Smeal, the Philip H. Sieg Professor of Business Administration and the associate director of the Institute for Real Estate Studies. Previously, he served as chair of the Department of Insurance and Real Estate (now the Department of Risk Management).
After Jaffe died unexpectedly in May 2019, his family chose to honor his legacy by combining memorial gifts with their own private commitment to endow the Austin J. Jaffe Real Estate Lecture Series. The series will bring leading scholars to campus to discuss research and ideas relevant to the field of real estate and to interact primarily with doctoral students and faculty.