William F. Sharpe received his Doctorate at the University of California and taught economics at the University of Washington and the Univiversity of California. He became a professor of finance for Stanford University in 1971. "In 1986, Sharpe founded William F. Sharpe Associates, a firm that consulted to foundations, endowments and pension plans." Sharpe shared the Nobel Prize in 1990 with Harry Markowitz and Merton H. Miller for "their contributions to financial economics." It is due to their contributions that financial economics is now seen as its own separate field of study .