Pawan Jain of the University of Michigan-Flint received the 2026 AFS / FP Canada Best Paper Award for “Navigating the Changing Financial Advice Landscape: AI Tools, Advisor Quality, and Non-Pecuniary Value of Financial Guidance.”
Sebastian Gomez-Cardona of Morningstar received the 2026 Special AFS Best Paper Award for “When Goals-Based Investing and Net Worth Optimization Disagree: Implications for Financial Planning,” coauthored with Thomas Idzorek.
Eric Ludwig of The American College of Financial Services and Liam Hanlon of Jump – Advisor AI received the 2026 AFS / FPA Best Paper Award for “Financial Planner Behaviors Associated with Prospect Acceptance of a Second Meeting.”
2026 Best Paper Finalists
AFS also awarded 2026 Best Paper Finalist certificates to the authors of three papers:
Brent Davis, David Richardson, and Benny Goodman
Managing Retirement Consumption Risk: A Framework Using
Fixed and Variable Annuities
Eric Ludwig, Chet R. Bennetts, and Zhikun Liu
Financial Planners as Anchors, Not Islands
Cole Turner, Jared Cornelius, Darin Carroll,
Stephen Lynn, and Lamindy Joseph
When It Comes to Referral Behavior, Not All Financial
Planning Domains Are Created Equal
2026 Poster Session Research Award
Congratulations to the winners of the 2026 AFS Poster Session Research Award. Special thanks to Dalton Education for sponsoring the poster session and award.
Todd Feldman, Khurram Naveed, and Barclay Roper
College for Financial Planning
The Dynamics of V-Shaped Market Corrections
Early Career Award
Yu (Yulia) Zhang of Kansas State University received the 2026 AFS Early Career Award for outstanding early-career contributions to financial planning research, publication, and service to the financial planning academic community.
The award recognizes scholars within five years of receiving their Ph.D. who demonstrate a strong publication record and active service.
Special Recognition Award
Thanh Ngo of East Carolina University received the 2026 AFS Special Recognition Award for outstanding service and contributions to the Academy of Financial Services.
© 2026 Academy of Financial Services
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