James Monroe Gamble IV (‘17) is a 1st-year Finance Ph.D. student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Business. Upon graduating from the University of Missouri in 2017, Monroe attended Harvard University before joining the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSF) as a Research Associate. Following his work at the Federal Reserve, Monroe participated in the Ph.D. Excellence Initiative at the New York University Stern School of Business.

Monroe feels his experience at the University of Missouri prepared him well for pursuing a Ph.D. As an undergraduate, Monroe was a Ronald E. McNair Scholar and an alumnus of the Summer Research Opportunities Program (The Ohio State University, Michigan State University), Big Data Summer Institute (University of Michigan), and American Economic Association Summer Program.

“I always sought out extra opportunities. You don’t need to be perfect to be successful. Graduating was difficult. I got Cs in math classes and failed exams, but I never gave up, even after dropping out. The key to my success is a positive attitude and a strong work ethic. Professor Dan Turban’s encouragement was instrumental to my success as a student. The best advice he gave me was to not worry about being the smartest person in the room. I have no control over that. Instead, I can choose to be the hardest working person. That’s been my mantra- and it’s worked well for me. So, my advice is to work hard regardless of the outcome. If students focus on the inputs, then the outputs take care of themselves.”