Advisors

Alex Murray took over as the OBG’s University faculty advisor in spring of 2022. Murray is an Assistant Professor of Management within the Lundquist College of Business. His research focuses on developing theoretical frameworks to explain how entrepreneurs and organizations mobilize resources, enroll initial stakeholders, and coordinate activities. He is particularly interested in empirical and theoretical puzzles stemming from the technologically-driven phenomena of decentralized organizations, disintermediated markets, and distributed online communities. His projects are based in a range of contexts including crowdfunding, multi-sided platforms, blockchain-based firms, and decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

Stephen McKeon is an associate professor in the Department of Finance, an Inman Research Scholar, and the academic director of the Cameron Center for Finance and Securities Analysis at the Lundquist College of Business. His expertise includes cryptoassets, private equity, and corporate risk-taking. He has been published in the Journal of Financial Economics, Review of Financial Studies, and Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.

McKeon received his PhD from Purdue University while teaching as a graduate student instructor. His professional experience includes being a founding partner at Collab+Currency, a venture capital firm with offices in San Francisco and New York, and he previously served as the CFO of a winery in Napa Valley. He co-founded Skyward, a commercial drone software company, which was acquired by Verizon in 2017.

He is currently on a leave of absence from the university, focusing his efforts on his VC firm.

Zack Rosenblatt is a graduate of the Lundquist College of Business (class of ‘22), and served as OBG President for the 2020-22 school years. With a concentration in finance, Zack joined Oregon Blockchain to help connect more UO students with the power of blockchain applications. Apart from academics, Zack enjoys watching sports and cheering on the New York Yankees. Upon graduation, Zack has accepted a position at the Web3-oriented venture capital firm Collab+Currency, as their Chief of Staff.

Aaron Rudder graduated Summa Cum Laude from the Lundquist College of Business (class of ‘23), and served as President of Oregon Blockchain for the 2022-23 school year. With focuses in Finance and Economics, Aaron is fascinated by Web3’s capacity to coordinate and crowdsource resources, address the tragedy of the commons, and reduce financial and social frictions in incumbent complex-systems. Aaron’s leadership team instituted the first iteration of the club’s “deliverable” program, which has helped enrich club membership via experiential learning. Outside of reading protocol whitepapers, Aaron enjoys playing soccer, hiking in the PacNW, and talking about the Way & the Life. Upon graduation, Aaron has accepted a position at a still-in-stealth start-up.

Aaron Rudder

Izik Butts

Izik is a Data Analyst at Rivermark Community Credit Union and a Data Engineer/Developer for OBG members to gather and query blockchain data. An entirely self taught individual who enjoys the infrastructure aspects of distributed ledger technology, and the overall exploration of anything tech. His primary focus is in the development and maintenance of data pipelines, custom ETL packages, and performant datasets for BI outputs.