Rate My Professor Lee Smales

Professor Lee Smales is Professor of Finance and Head of Department of Finance in the UWA Business School at The University of Western Australia. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics, Operational Research, Statistics and Economics from the University of Warwick (1998), an MSc in International Banking and Financial Studies from the University of Southampton (2000), an MBA in Business Administration from the University of New South Wales (2009), and a PhD in Finance from the University of New South Wales (2013). He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder.

Prior to academia, Smales worked eight years as Vice President at Citigroup (2000-2007), trading foreign-exchange and interest-rate derivatives. His academic appointments include Associate Lecturer at the University of New South Wales (2010-2012), Senior Lecturer at Curtin University (2013-2016), and Associate Professor at Curtin University (2017-2018). Smales' research specializations encompass financial markets, investments, market microstructure, behavioural finance, news sentiment, political risk, safe-havens, commodity markets, macroeconomics, event studies, financial economics, and futures markets. He has authored publications in prominent journals, including "A Test of Through-the-Cycle Ratings: Moody’s Response to COVID-19" with L. Malone and Z. Liu (Research in International Business and Finance, 2026), "Predicting serial credit rating downgrades" with L. Malone and Z. Liu (Global Finance Journal, 2026), "Technical talk in bitcoin and equity" with D. Cahill and Z. Liu (British Accounting Review, 2026), "When news travels: The role of sentiment in CME Nikkei futures returns" (Research in International Business and Finance, 2026), and "From extraordinary to ordinary: how Moody’s acquisition made ESG mainstream in credit ratings" with L. Malone and Z. Liu (Journal of Accounting Literature, 2025). Awards include the China Finance Review International Literati Award (2021), Curtin Business School New Teacher of the Year (2015), and Curtin Business School New Researcher of the Year (2014). He contributes as a reviewer for journals such as Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Spatial Economic Analysis, Bulletin of Economic Research, Journal of Econometrics, and Complexity, and previously served as Board Member (Perth Society) of the CFA Institute and Exam Development Consultant for the CFA Institute.