Predoctoral Research Associate (Summer 2026)

Harvard Business School (HBS) is seeking multiple Predoctoral Research Associates starting in Summer 2026 to support an assigned faculty member in one of the following academic units. 

• Accounting & Management
• Business, Government and the International Economy
• Entrepreneurial Management
• Finance
• General Management
• Marketing
• Negotiation Organizations & Markets
• Organizational Behavior 
• Strategy 
• Technology and Operations Management

Research subjects can include but are not limited to: labor economics, marketing economics, private equity / venture capital disclosures and taxation, decision making and gender stereotypes in shaping beliefs, industrial organization and the market design of digital platforms, media economics and economics of digital platforms, emerging financial technologies and alternative data, political economy and empirical corporate finance, R&D strategy and the economics of innovation, corporate social responsibilities focused on climate change and gender diversity, asset pricing shaping politics and markets, specialized knowledge commercialization and micro-geographic environments shaping innovation, behavioral economics, intergroup inequity, and tech strategy. 

Please note the faculty currently hiring include: Livia Alfonsi, Tomomichi Amano, Brian Baik, Katherine Coffman & Joshua Schwartzstein (paired together), Renata Gaineddenova, Quan Le, Jung Koo Kang & Shirley Lu (paired together), Elisabeth Kempf, Maxwell Miller, Maria Roche, Andy Wu, and Zoe Cullen. You will see this posting updated with names of additional hiring faculty listed in the coming months as more needs are identified. We ask that you please indicate the faculty you are interested in supporting in your cover letter. 

More information on career outcomes, including PhD programs recent Predoctoral Research Associates attended, can be seen here. 

Overview: The Predoctoral Research Associate position reports directly to faculty supervisors and administrative manager in the Research Staff Services office.  Ideal candidates will be comfortable in an environment that requires a high level of independence, intellectual curiosity, and the ability to use discretionary judgment.  

Primary duties:

• Build trust and collaboration by being present on-site and engaging directly with colleagues and various constituents.
• Work under the general direction of HBS faculty on topics central to HBS research agenda.  Provide subject-area knowledge, analysis and interpretation to faculty member.  Identify and explore a wide-range of questions related to faculty’s research agenda.
• Write cases, case supplements, project reports, and policy memos from start to finish creating original writing based on subject-area expertise, research, and interviews, and write articles for applicable business audiences such as Harvard Business Review.
• Develop, design, conduct, analyze, and implement research using data science knowledge and prior knowledge of requested statistical packages. Perform statistical programming.
• Manage and manipulate data using requested packages, such as STATA, Python, R, or MATLAB.
• Ensure compliance with department, University, and federal regulations.  Complete work with only general direction.  Be aware of department, School, University policies and potential outside research policies.
• Under general direction of faculty member, must be able to take complex research ideas, concepts, and methodologies and apply them to new projects and situations.  Must be able to structure assignments and keep faculty member informed as necessary, using own judgment.
• Responsible for other duties as assigned.