Junior Academics Research Seminars (JARS) in Finance

Zhenkai Ran is a PhD candidate in Finance at Cambridge Judge Business School and was a visiting research scholar at Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. He is the recipient of the 2025/2026 CJBS Dean's Research Excellence Prize. He holds an MPhil in Economic Research from the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge. His research examines frictions in corporate finance, with interests spanning corporate finance, FinTech, behavioural finance, and climate finance.

Dr Carmine Russo is a Post-doctoral Researcher in the Climate Finance and Economics group at the Institute for Ecological Economics, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. His research interests lie in the fields of climate finance, environmental economics, digital finance, and applied economics. His current work investigates the relationship between climate risk awareness and cryptocurrency returns. Other projects examine climate risks pricing in option markets and the climate insurance protection gap. Carmine holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Naples Federico II.

Xuan Xie is a Ph.D. candidate in Finance at the University of Washington – Foster School of Business, and she is on the 2025–2026 academic job market. Her research interests includes empirical corporate finance, corporate governance, and household finance.

Xinkai (Kai) Wu is a third-year Ph.D. student in the IEOR (Operations Research) Department of Columbia University with research interests in empirical asset pricing, macroeconomics, and decentralized finance. Xinkai Wu is fortunate to be advised by Professor Agostino Capponi. Recently, with Professor Capponi and Professor Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, he wrote a paper on the credit risk transfer bonds. The link to the paper is available at https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5446334

Lihang Chen is a 5th-year PhD candidate in Finance at Bayes Business School (formerly Cass). His research interests include corporate finance, corporate governance, and sustainable finance. His recent paper provides novel evidence that local political corruption increases corporate carbon emissions by weakening environmental regulatory scrutiny. His other research projects examine how institutional pressures, such as legal frameworks and data security risks, shape corporate decisions. Lihang holds an MSc in Finance from King’s College London and a BSc in Finance, Accounting and Management from the University of Nottingham.

Danial Salman is a PhD Candidate in Finance at the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. His current research focuses on household finance, labour economics, innovation, and venture capital. Previously, he worked at the Center for Global Development after graduating from Boston University.