Led by prominent scholars and industry practitioners, the RULI faculty provides unparalleled expertise in the study of regulated industries. Representing both the Financial Research Institute and the private sector, our instructors combine leading research with practical experience in rate design, energy policy, and governance—delivering the authoritative perspective required to navigate today’s complex regulatory landscape.
Martha Davis, PhD
Dr. Martha Davis is a Managing Consultant at Atrium Economics specializing in regulatory policy, utility pricing, and rate design. She brings more than twenty years of experience across the utility sector in analytical, regulatory, strategic, and industry research roles, supported by a strong academic foundation in business, public policy, and quantitative analysis.
She has extensive experience in regulatory work for electric and gas utilities, government affairs, and leading technical publications supporting the utility sector. Her expertise evaluating operational performance and affordability informs her innovative approach to modern utility pricing and rate design. In academia, she served as an assistant professor, teaching at the collegiate level in advanced business analytics, corporate finance, and strategic management.
Dr. Davis holds a Ph.D. from the University of Denver, Daniels School of Business, an M.P.A. and M.B.A. from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and a B.A. from Westminster College, along with graduate coursework in law and public policy at American University.
Adrienne Ohler, PhD
Dr. Adrienne Ohler is FRI’s Associate Director of Policy Research and an Associate Professor of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Missouri, researching and teaching in the areas of environmental and energy economics. Her research rests at the intersection of regulatory economics, energy policy, and externalities involving environmental and population health impacts. Her work employs secondary data analysis and simulation modeling to examine the impact of policy changes and institutional structure on health, the environment, and economic outcomes. Her academic research can be found in Land Economics, the Journal of Regulatory Economics, Contemporary Economic Policy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and Finance, The Energy Journal, Energy Policy, and the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management.
Dr. Ohler earned a Ph.D. in economics and M.S. in statistics from Washington State University, and a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Illinois. Prior to joining the faculty at Missouri in 2019, she was an Associate Professor of Economics at Illinois State University, and Director of Outreach for the Institute for Regulatory Policy Studies.
Michael Sykuta, PhD
Dr. Michael Sykuta is an economist and Associate Professor in the Division of Applied Social Sciences at the University of Missouri. He was appointed Executive Director of FRI effective January 1, 2021.
Dr. Sykuta’s research focuses on contracting practices, firm organization, organizational governance, and the implications of regulation and government programs for firm and industry behavior. He has published articles in such peer-reviewed journals as Journal of Law and Economics, Financial Review, Journal of Corporate Finance, Antitrust Bulletin, Managerial and Decision Economics; and book chapters on econometrics of contracting and organizational economics research. He co-edited and published The Elgar Companion to Transaction Cost Economics with Peter G. Klein.
He is an affiliate scholar with the International Center for Law & Economics and is co-editor of the Social Science Research Network (SSRN)’s New Institutional Economics eJournal. He is Co-founder and Director of the Contracting and Organizations Research Institute (CORI), an interdisciplinary research program at the University of Missouri focused on the economics and law of contracting, organization, and corporate governance.
He earned a PhD in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a BS in economics from the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Prior to joining the faculty at Missouri in 1998, he was on faculty at the University of Pittsburgh’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business.