Adamiec Honored with Best Podcast Series 2025 for Academic Market Insights

Purdue HTM professor recognized for innovative, real-world financial education

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WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Larissa Adamiec, clinical associate professor of financial counseling and planning in Purdue University’s White Lodging–J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, has been recognized with the Best Podcast Series 2025 award for her work on Academic Market Insights (AMI). The honor highlights Adamiec’s commitment to expanding financial education beyond the traditional classroom and making market concepts accessible to a broad audience.

Academic Market Insights is a collaborative podcast and video platform created by faculty who aim to blend academic theory with real-time financial events, offering students and listeners an applied lens into today’s dynamic market environment. Through conversations, explainers, and instructional video series, AMI gives subscribers insight into how professors integrate market shifts, news trends, and economic changes directly into their teaching.

“Academic Market Insights has been a way for us to step out of the classroom to apply what we learn to current events,” Adamiec said. “We have been able to discuss wonky interest rate environments, strikes, the government shutdown, overpricing of the market, and, of course, the Santa Clause effect.”

The podcast’s direction is shaped heavily by its audience. “We listen to feedback from our students and subscribers to determine which topics to tackle,” Adamiec added.

Broadening Market Literacy for All

A hallmark of AMI is its focus on making finance approachable, even to those with limited market knowledge. Adamiec credits a special supporter for helping shape that mission.

“Our number one fan has been able to help us slow down and explain market terms to non-market people. We will be forever grateful to our number one fan!”

AMI also engages listeners through series such as its widespread “Introduction to Trading Options” videos. “Our introduction to trading options video series allowed us to tackle this exciting question from two different perspectives, giving our students the ability to see how two different people with two very different backgrounds tackle the same problem,” Adamiec noted.

Deep-Dive Personal Finance Education

Beyond market commentary, Adamiec has led an extensive Personal Finance video series—eight in total—that breaks down the complexities of retirement planning and long-term financial decision making.

The series covers topics including:

  • Retirement fundamentals and shifting definitions of retirement in a world where many continue working later in life.
  • Behavioral finance issues, consistent saving strategies, and the factors that shape wealth accumulation.
  • Qualified retirement plans, including defined benefit and defined contribution options, and why firms choose one model over another.
  • Pension vs. profit-sharing structures, plus corporate considerations when designing retirement benefits.
  • Employee ownership models, spanning direct ownership and stock options.
  • Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), early-planning advantages, and rules on catch-up contributions and withdrawals.

A Mission to Expand the Classroom

At its core, AMI is a community of professors dedicated to enriching financial education. “AMI is an organization of professors who look to expand the classroom by discussing topics that a typical finance class would not have the opportunity to discuss,” Adamiec said. “We do collaborations of papers and such together.”

Through AMI, Adamiec blends academic rigor with real-world context—bringing current events, market shifts, and personal finance strategies to life for students and the broader public.

Her Best Podcast Series 2025 award celebrates not only the success of Academic Market Insights, but also the growing impact of innovative educators who take learning beyond the lecture hall.

For more information about Purdue University’s financial counseling and planning program within the White Lodging–J.W. Marriott, Jr. School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, visit the school’s website.