The Predoctoral Staff Associate Program at Columbia Business School provides an opportunity to gain experience in academic research, with a special focus in one of CBS' academic divisions: Accounting; Decision, Risk & Operations; Economics; Finance; Management; or Marketing. The two-year program helps fellows earn admittance to PhD programs and prepares them for successful graduate-school careers. Predoctoral Staff Associates are hired as full-time staff members and are paid a salary.
Our alumni have been admitted to PhD programs in top-tier business, economics, sociology, and other graduate programs across the country, including Columbia Business School.
Under the guidance of CBS faculty, the Staff Associate plays an active role in multiple research projects that are in various stages, from conception through publication. The work may include but is not limited to: webscraping, cleaning and merging data, literature reviews, and statistical analysis. When Staff Associates make significant intellectual contributions to a research project, they may be offered authorship.
In addition to being mentored by CBS' leading researchers, Staff Associates have the opportunity to take one course per semester in disciplines such as sociology, psychology, business, economics, mathematics, computer science, statistics, and data science. Staff Associates are expected to attend research seminars and are integrated into the CBS research community. In the second year of the program, a faculty member helps guide them through the PhD application process.
General Requirements
Candidates should be intellectually curious, have the ability to learn new skills independently, and have a demonstrated interest in research. A bachelor’s degree is required. Candidates must have demonstrated strong quantitative skills or have an undergraduate or graduate degree in economics or finance, or in a quantitative discipline such as electrical engineering, computer science, operations research, mathematics, or statistics. It is expected that the candidate will apply to a PhD program after completion of the first year, although some students ultimately take jobs in industry. Candidates should have advanced knowledge of and motivation to learn more technical skills pertaining to the use of statistical and mathematical software and programming languages, including Stata, R, Python, and MATLAB. Having a background in advanced mathematics (linear algebra, optimization) and statistics (regression analysis) is helpful. Knowledge of other programming languages (SAS, SQL, C/C++) and software packages (Tableau, ArcGIS, etc.) is considered a plus.
Application Process
Applications for this program are submitted via Interfolio. To view openings for the program and apply, visit the Columbia Academic Careers website, filter by Columbia Business School, and review positions with the title of Staff Associate or Staff Associate I.
For more information
Please email us at [email protected].