John Puthenpurackal, an Indian citizen, has lived in three countries for extended periods. He was born in Nigeria and lived there till the age of 15. He spent the next 13 years in India, and he has been in the U.S. since 1997. He has an undergraduate degree in Engineering and an MBA degree (both from India) and a Ph.D. in Finance from Texas A&M University. He has been at UNLV since Fall 2006 and prior to that was a faculty member at Ohio University for four years.

His main research interests are in the corporate governance and corporate finance areas. He has published seven articles so far; two in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis; three in Financial Management, and one each in the Journal of Financial Intermediation and the Journal of Business Research. He has taught courses in international financial management, corporate finance and investments.

His hobbies are reading (mostly non-fiction), playing squash, travelling, and spending time with his family (wife, Deepa, and two sons, John and George).