Research Assistance

Predoctoral Staff Associates

Each division has at least one full-time Predoctoral Staff Associate that is funded by the Dean’s Office. Please reach out to your Staff Associate faculty liaison or send an email to [email protected] to request more information.

Subsidized Research Assistants

Subsidized Research Assistants (RAs) are Columbia undergraduate and graduate students who can assist on a by-project basis with data analysis, data labeling, participant recruitment, running in-person and online studies and more. These RAs are available at no cost for all research tasks, up to a total of 80 hours per fiscal year per researcher.

Data analysts are primarily graduate students with expertise in exploratory data analysis (EDA), coding, statistics, machine learning, web scraping, Natural Language Processing (NLP) and more. After the initial free 80 hours, their rate increases to $24 per hour.

Behavioral RAs focus on tasks related to behavioral research, such as recruiting participants, administering studies, data labeling, literature review and more. After the initial free 80 hours, their rate increases to $23 per hour.

Please complete the online form To request a subsidized RA including project details, expected timeline and other relevant information. Learn more about the current RAs.

Student Casuals

Currently enrolled students from the Columbia student community can be hired as Student Casuals to work with individual faculty members. If you have already identified the student whom you wish to hire, please ask your divisional Director of Academic Administration to submit a Student Hiring Request.

Students typically work between 10-20 hours per week and cannot work more than 20 hours per week across all positions held at the University. If you need help finding suitable candidates for the position, please ask your divisional Director of Academic Administration for assistance posting the position. All required paperwork must be completed before students can begin working on a project.

Candidates from outside the Columbia University community can also be hired to work on research projects, but please note that this is a lengthier and more cumbersome process. 

Provide mentorship to a student in return for research support.

Columbia Undergraduate Business Scholars (CUBS) is a research program designed to fill the research pipeline with select Columbia and Barnard undergraduates. By mentoring one of these students, you will receive up to 80 hours of free research support throughout the academic year. After the 80-hour allotment, students may continue working at a rate of $22.50 per hour. This program is subsidized by the Dean’s Office. The next round of faculty proposals is due in November 2025 for the Spring 2025 cohort.

The Summer Research Internship Program provides undergraduate interns the opportunity to work with Columbia Business School's faculty for eight weeks in the summer on a research project which may include literature reviews, data collection and cleaning, web scraping, and statistical analysis. This program is fully funded by the Dean’s Office. Faculty proposals are due early in the spring semester for the following summer.

The list below includes copy editors and writers who have been suggested by Business School colleagues to assist faculty members with editorial tasks. The list is intended as a resource; it is not a specific review or recommendation by the School or the Dean’s Office of the person’s work.