Save the Date for Outlook 2025 : November 13, 2025

Renu Khator, Ph.D.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON, AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEMBER AT PNC BANK

Renu Khator has been serving as chancellor of the University of Houston System and president of its flagship University of Houston campus, since January of 2008. She broke boundaries and glass ceilings with these appointments, as she became the first female chancellor in the state of Texas and the first Indian immigrant to lead a comprehensive research university in the U.S.

She has been named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has served on numerous boards, including Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, TIAA-CREF, NCAA, American Council on Education, Association of American Colleges and Universities, and the Greater Houston Partnership. She has been named a Global Education and Institutional Leadership Honoree by the World Affairs Council of Greater Houston, a Houston Business Journal Women Who Mean Business Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Houstonian of the year and inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame. In 2014, Indian President Pranab Mukherjee presented her with the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award, the highest distinction bestowed upon a non-resident Indian.

Sandip A. Bhagat

GUEST PANELIST

CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER AT WHITTIER TRUST

Sandip Bhagat has over 25 years of portfolio management, research, and trading experience in equities, asset allocation, alternatives, derivatives, and multi-asset class investment solutions. He is responsible for Whittier Trust’s investment policies, strategies, and research across traditional and alternative asset classes.

Prior to joining Whittier Trust Sandip was global head of equities at Vanguard where he had responsibility for all passive, ETF, and active equity portfolios and alternatives strategies managed by the Vanguard Equity Investment Group. Before joining Vanguard in 2009, he was a Managing Director and head of the global asset allocation and systematic strategies at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. Sandip began his career in 1987 at Travelers Investment Management Company and eventually became its Chief Investment Officer Prior to 2004, Sandip was a Managing Director at Citigroup Asset Management and served in several senior roles across its multiple business units and predecessor organizations.

Andrew Woods

DIRECTOR, UNLV CENTER FOR BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Prior to joining UNLV’s CBER, Andrew started and ran a successful economic analysis, financial management, and public affairs consulting firm, as CEO of Woods Strategies, in Las Vegas, Nevada. His expertise in applying data and research to strengthen organizations and communities has led him to hold many leadership positions both in the public and private sectors. He is known for his financial acumen, vision, reliability, and integrity.

Andrew has been involved in the public policy process on behalf of his clients and has a passion for data-driven solutions to complex problems. Andrew’s knowledge of and interest in a variety of diverse policy issues is why he is a regular contributor to journalism outlets such as Nevada Public Radio and the Las Vegas Sun.

Stephen M. Miller

PROFESSOR, UNLV CENTER FOR BUSINESS AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Stephen M. Miller served as director of the Center for Business and Economic Research for the last six years. He is the former chair of the Board of Directors of The Economic Club of Las Vegas, a professor of economics, and former department chair in the Lee Business School at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Prior to that, he was professor of economics and department head at the University of Connecticut. He also held visiting positions with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and with the Congressional Budget Office. He received higher education training at Purdue University, receiving his bachelor’s degree with distinction in Engineering Sciences Engineering (a part of the Aeronautical Engineering School), and at the State University of New York at Buffalo, receiving his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in economics.

At UNLV, he developed with one of his M.A. students, Mustafa Gunaydin, the CBER-DETR Nevada Coincident and Leading Employment Indexes. These indexes track the contemporaneous and future movements in the Nevada employment markets. After becoming Director of CBER, he developed general coincident and leading indexes for the Nevada and Southern Nevada. These indexes track the contemporaneous and future movements in the overall Nevada and Southern Nevada economies.

Amber Renee Dixon

PANEL MODERATOR

HOST, EMMY & EDWARD R. MURROW AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST

Amber Renee Dixon, a regional Edward R. Murrow and Emmy Award winner, is a veteran journalist who’s worked in Las Vegas for more than a decade. Amber became the host of the weekly public affairs show Nevada Week on Vegas PBS in February 2022, and in September 2022, she and the Nevada Week team won the Division 1 Public Media Award in Content: News and Public Affairs. An Arizona native, Amber is bilingual in Spanish and a proud graduate of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. She began her career reporting on border issues in South Africa, then continued on her journalistic path in Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. In 2012, she moved to Las Vegas to begin working at KSNV, the NBC affiliate. At KSNV, she worked for two years in News as a general assignment reporter, then transitioned into the role of sports reporter and weekend sports anchor.

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