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Financial Expert Receives Honored Professor Award
NORTHAMPTON, Mass.—International finance expert and Professor of Economics Mahnaz Mahdavi received the Honored Professor Award during Smith College’s 130th commencement ceremony May 18.
 A native of Iran, Mahdavi joined Smith’s faculty in 1985 after receiving her doctorate in economics from at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on international interest rates and international equity markets.
As the founding director of Smith’s Women and Financial Independence Program, Mahdavi has developed pioneering approaches to improving women’s financial literacy and confidence in making financial decisions.
She is frequently sought by the national media for comment on college students’ financial knowledge and on gender differences in attitudes toward personal finance. “Every woman needs to know how to manage her financial life,” Mahdavi has said.
In 2002, she was appointed to represent the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at the U.S. Department of Labor National Summit on Retirement Savings. In 2004, she was an inaugural recipient of Smith’s Kathleen Compton Sherrerd ’54 and John J.F. Sherrerd Prize for Distinguished Teaching.
Since 1987, Smith College has presented the Honored Professor Award every year to a faculty member who has given long and distinguished service to the college.
Smith College educates women of promise for lives of distinction. By linking the power of the liberal arts to excellence in research and scholarship, Smith is developing leaders for society’s challenges. Smith is the largest undergraduate women’s college in the country, enrolling 2,600 students from nearly every state and 61 other countries.
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