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April 29, 2010

Obituary: Kuldeep Shastri

Shastri

Longtime business administration professor Kuldeep Shastri died April 19, 2010, of cardiac arrest. He was 55.

Shastri held the Roger S. Ahlbrandt Sr. Endowed Chair in Finance at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business. He also was an affiliated faculty member in the University’s Asian Studies Center and the Center for Latin American Studies.

Shastri joined the Katz faculty in 1981. His research interests included corporate finance, derivatives, market microstructure and international finance.

He was awarded the business school’s distinguished professor award six times and the Katz Excellence in Teaching Award four times. Shastri was recognized in 2002-03 with the Dean’s Distinguished Service Award.

Shastri taught at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the areas of corporate finance, derivatives, financial engineering, investments and market microstructure, and was among the most prolific authors in finance literature.

This term, Shastri was teaching two sections of the MBA Introduction to Derivatives and two sections of Derivatives: Applications to Valuation and Value Creation courses; Fixed Income Securities and the MBA and College of Business Administration courses Markets and Trading.

Shastri was influential in the development of the business school’s financial analysis laboratory. The $2.3 million lab, which resembles a financial trading room, opened in 2008.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1975, his MBA from the Katz school in 1976 and his PhD from UCLA in 1982.

Finance faculty colleague Chad Zutter remembered Shastri as a “magnet for people” who welcomed junior faculty and others into his home. “He was the epicenter of a very large extended family” of friends and colleagues from his native India, the institutions he’d attended, University colleagues, neighbors and others beyond academia, Zutter said.

Shastri recruited Zutter to join the Pitt faculty nine years ago. Shastri and his wife, Karen, also a Katz faculty member, became like family to Zutter and his wife, who have no relatives here.

Over the years, the two families celebrated holidays and attended Pitt football and basketball games together, Zutter said.

“He was a very dear family friend,” who reached out to junior faculty both personally and professionally, Zutter said. An accomplished chef, Shastri enjoyed inviting colleagues and students to his home for dinners.

“He was a provider for everybody,” Zutter added.

Shastri regularly took on additional teaching responsibilities in the Katz school to allow junior faculty more time for research, aiding their pursuit of tenure. His habit of taking on a variety of smaller elective classes enabled colleagues to focus on a narrower area of teaching, freeing them from additional classroom preparation time that could take time from their research.

Shastri loved teaching and loved his students, Zutter said. “It came easy to him even though he taught rigorous courses.” Nevertheless, the teaching load required a sacrifice on Shastri’s part, Zutter acknowledged.

The day he died, Shastri was to have given three finals, Zutter said, adding that, according to students, Shastri had been on the phone at 11 o’clock the previous night answering questions about the upcoming exam.

“He was an above-and-beyond kind of guy,” Zutter said. In the midst of it all, he remained a dedicated husband and father, reserving a day each week for his son, Joey.

“On a professional and personal front, he was very accomplished; in many ways without equal,” Zutter said. “He was very unique in that while many people can be successful, it’s generally in one dimension. So often if we gain success it’s just in one avenue.”

John T. Delaney, dean of the Katz school and the College of Business Administration, said: “Kuldeep was a recognized scholar, teacher and mentor. He left a lasting impression on finance education at the University of Pittsburgh and on finance research worldwide. His presence in Mervis Hall will truly be missed.”

Shastri co-authored a graduate-level textbook on corporate valuation, “Financial Theory and Corporate Policy,” which has been translated into German, Chinese and Portuguese.

He also was a visiting professor at several business schools, including the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. Shastri served as associate editor of the Financial Review and the Journal of Financial Research and was a member of the editorial boards of the Pacific-Basin Finance Journal and the Review of Financial Economics.

In addition to his wife and son, Shastri is survived by his mother, Padma, and a brother, Sandeep Shastri.

The family suggests donations to Focus on Renewal, 701 Chartiers Ave., McKees Rocks, PA 15136 or Little Sisters of the Poor, 1028 Benton Ave., Pittsburgh 15212.

—Kimberly K. Barlow


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