Research Associate with Professor Abhishek Bhardwaj

Role: Research Associate

Location: Hyderabad

No of Openings:1

Faculty Name: Abhishek Bhardwaj

Academic Area: Finance

Start Date: July 2026

Research Summary of the Faculty:

Professor: Abhishek Bhardwaj

Abhishek Bhardwaj is an Assistant Professor of Finance at Tulane University (USA) and incoming faculty at the Indian School of Business (ISB). He holds a PhD in Finance from NYU Stern School of Business. His experience spans both academia and industry. He currently serves as an Independent Director at Zerodha Fund House and previously worked at Deutsche Bank, where he worked closely with financial markets and hedge fund clients. His research has been presented at leading conferences such as the National Bureau of Economic Research and the American Finance Association, as well as major private capital research forums. His work has also been featured in several media outlets including the Financial Times.

His research focuses on some of the most important and fast-evolving areas in finance, including private equity, modern banking, and climate risk. His current projects study how private equity funds design strategies and generate returns, how innovations in lending affect businesses and large investors, and how firms adapt to climate change and natural disasters. The work combines large-scale datasets, cutting-edge empirical methods, and AI tools to answer questions that matter for both the financial industry and policymakers.

About ISB

The Indian School of Business (ISB) evolved from the need for a world-class business school in Asia. The founders, some of the best minds from the corporate and academic worlds, anticipated the leadership needs of the emerging Asian economies. The ISB is committed to creating such leaders through its innovative programs, outstanding faculty, and thought leadership. The Indian School of Business (ISB) provides a robust environment that generates high-quality research that is both contemporary and rigorous.

Roles & Responsibilities:

You will work closely with the faculty on research projects in private equity, financial intermediation, and climate risk. The role involves working with large-scale, messy real-world datasets, building new datasets from scratch, and applying advanced empirical and AI-based methods to answer open questions that matter for investors, policymakers, and global financial markets. Core responsibilities include:

• Data construction and integration: Assemble datasets from diverse structured and unstructured sources; design and build research-grade datasets from scratch
• Data pipelines and management: Process and manage large-scale datasets; develop scalable, reproducible workflows for data validation and transformation
• Theory-driven empirical work: Implement econometric and statistical models grounded in economic theory to study causal relationships and test hypotheses
• Research implementation: Translate conceptual research questions into empirical strategies and production-quality code; iterate on models and rigorously validate results
• AI-driven research workflows: Use advanced AI tools and agentic coding workflows to accelerate data processing, code development, and research execution
• Research interaction: Present and discuss research ideas in internal workshops; actively participate in brainstorming with faculty and peers on fundamental problems in finance
• Synthesis and communication: Review academic literature, interpret findings, and contribute to presentations and research drafts

You should expect to work on complex, open-ended problems that require both technical depth and independent thinking. This position is best suited for candidates aiming for top PhD programs in the US and Europe, research-driven careers in finance, or data-intensive roles in industry, and who are comfortable operating in a high-intensity, high-expectation research environment.

Required Skills and Qualifications:

Qualifications

• Undergraduate degree from IIT / BITS / ISI / top universities in India or abroad in Engineering, Economics, Mathematics, Statistics, or related quantitative disciplines
• Strong academic performance
• Master's degree (e.g., ISI, DSE, top global programs) or prior experience in research/data-intensive roles is preferred but not required

Core Skills

• Strong interest in research in Finance or Economics, and in pursuing top PhD programs or research-driven careers, along with interest in current developments in financial markets, private equity, banking, and macro-financial issues.
• Strong coding skills in Stata (required) and Python (strongly preferred), with the ability to write clean, efficient, and reproducible code for data analysis.
• Experience working with large, real-world datasets, including data cleaning, transformation, and integration, with high attention to detail when working with complex and noisy datasets.
• Solid understanding of statistics and basic econometrics, and the ability to translate economic or financial questions into empirical strategies and testable hypotheses.
• Candidates should be comfortable working with minimal supervision and taking ownership of parts of a research project.

Nice to Have

• Experience with causal inference methods (e.g., DID, IV, event studies)
• Familiarity with machine learning methods, NLP, or unstructured data
• Experience using AI tools and agentic workflows to improve coding and data processes
• Prior exposure to financial markets, private equity, or banking datasets

Strong candidates may have the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to ongoing research projects.

Our Commitment towards you:

ISB is a research-focused business school. It offers a variety of opportunities to understand the current management phenomena in depth, through research brown-bag seminars, workshops, and PhD-level courses. It provides several options to hone a person's analytical skills. This position is best suited for a candidate with an interest in pursuing a PhD down the line.

Along with the competitive salary and plethora of employee benefits, ISB hosts a world-class Learning Resource Centre in the entire Asia, Comprehensive Health and Personal Accident Cover for you and your family members. ISB believes in creating a truly inclusive culture that values diversity, equity, and inclusion for everyone through our ideas and collaborations.

For any queries, reach out to - [Confidential Information]. Kindly do not share your resumes or CVs via email. Please use the link below for submissions.

If this role is your true calling, please fill out the form using the below-mentioned link.

https://www.cognitoforms.com/IndianSchoolOfBusiness9/FDOHiringForm

Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, and only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for the next steps.