In addition to working collaboratively on quantitative research and thought leadership, the AAC will also bring together industry leaders and renowned scholars through symposiums to exchange views on issues of critical importance.

"The role of the Academic Advisory Council is to serve as a premier forum for thought leadership in the commercial banking industry," said Paul Saltzman, President of The Clearing House Association. "Constructive dialogue among academics, policymakers and commercial banks of all sizes will create a stronger, more competitive banking system, and we believe the formation of the AAC is precisely the medium required to enhance the intellectual content and empirical framework of this dialogue."

The Council's initial sponsored event, a conference on measuring systemic risk, was hosted by the University of Chicago's Milton Friedman Institute for Research in Economics at the Chicago Federal Reserve Bank in December. The AAC sponsored its second event on February 10 with the launch of the University of North Carolina Center for Banking and Finance New York Lecture Series on the topic of preemption, a doctrine in law that asserts the supremacy of federal legislation over state law on the same subject. Planned events for 2011 include the UNC School of Law's Banking Institute on March 31-April 1 and a bank capital and liquidity conference hosted by Stanford University on June 3. In addition, the AAC anticipates sponsoring events hosted by Columbia University's Richard Paul Richman Center for Business, Law, and Public Policy.

"The formation of the Academic Advisory Council comes at an important time for the global financial system," said Robert Johnson, Co-Chair of the AAC and Executive Vice President and General Counsel of BB&T. "As the world economies continue to recover from the recession, leaders from the banking and academic communities will have a unique and valuable opportunity to exchange information and ideas on topics of critical importance to banks of all sizes."

The members of the Academic Advisory Council include:

• Gregory Baer, General Counsel for Corporate and Global Regulatory of JP Morgan Chase
• Lissa Broome, Wachovia Professor of Banking Law and Director of the Center for Banking and Finance at UNC
• Darrell Duffie, Dean Witter Distinguished Professor of Finance at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business
• Paul Glasserman, Jack R. Anderson Professor of Business at Columbia University
• Lars Peter Hansen, Director, Milton Friedman Institute and David Rockefeller Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago
• Robert Johnson, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of BB&T
•  Anil Kashyap, Co-Director, Initiative on Global Markets and Edward Eagle Brown Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• Michael Klausner, Nancy and Charles Munger Professor of Business and Law at Stanford Law School
• Mickey Levy, Chief Economist at Bank of America
• Andrew Lo, Director, MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering and Harris & Harris Group Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Evan Picoult, Managing Director, Risk Architecture at Citigroup
• Anthony Santomero, Senior Advisor at McKinsey & Company
• Peter Schnall, Chief Risk Officer of Capital One
• John Silvia, Chief Economist at Wells Fargo Bank
• Zion Shohet, Executive Vice President, Financial Reform at Citibank