Sarah Hammer
Professor Sarah Hammer is Managing Director of the Center for Innovation in Finance and Senior Fellow of the Alternative Investments Program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In these roles, she focuses her efforts on private capital investments and financial technology. Prof. Hammer also leads Cypher Accelerator and Cypher Incubator — a premier global corporate accelerator and incubator for financial technology businesses — as well as The Blockchain Research Laboratory at the Wharton School. Prof. Hammer is also Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, teaching an upper-level juris doctor course on financial regulation and alternative investments.  Prof. Hammer also serves as an Affiliated Scholar for the Penn Program on Regulation. Previously, Prof. Hammer was Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions and Director of the Office of Financial Institutions Policy at the United States Department of the Treasury. In this role, she led and directed the Department’s policy responsibilities involving financial institutions, as well as oversaw the Federal Insurance Office and the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Compliance Policy (cybersecurity). Prof. Hammer has held various leadership positions throughout financial services in general management, portfolio management, trading, marketing, research, and analytics at the Vanguard Group, PIMCO, JP Morgan Chase, BlackRock, and Tudor Investments. Prof. Hammer earned a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a Master of Studies from Oxford University.Â
