Matthew T. Billett was a financial economist at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in Washington, D.C., and previously taught at the universities of Iowa and Miami. Professor Billett joined the IU Kelley School faculty in 2011. His research focuses on mergers and acquisitions, capital structure, and bank lending. He has been associate editor of the Journal of Financial Research since 2004. He currently is working on projects on how access to financial markets influences product market competitiveness and how the variation in the ease and tightness of credit markets influences the types of covenants in financial contracts and the risks investors are willing to accept. Before coming to Kelley, Professor Billett received nearly a dozen teaching awards and several research fellowships at the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business. He twice was cited as an outstanding faculty member in the Businessweek (now Bloomberg Businessweek) annual guide of the best business schools. He also directed Tippie's MBA Finance Career Academy. He earned his Ph.D. in finance from the University of Florida.