I am an Assistant Professor of Technology in the department of Technology, Operations and Statistics (TOpS) at NYU Stern School of Business.

My research focuses on digital platform policies and platform governance questions. I am deeply interested in understanding the impact of policy changes by platforms on all sides. I believe that quantifying both intended and unintended consequences of such policy changes help platforms to govern better. Some of my ongoing research intends to understand:

1. What happens when mobile apps intentionally delay adopting a new Android privacy policy.
2. How to enable interactions between viewers and content on Smart-Linear TVs.
3. How banning food delivery platforms’ untested growth strategies can impact restaurants’ choices.
4. How enabling free-floating tradability of platform specific digital tokens can backfire.
5. What happens when an online marketplace discloses sellers’ physical location.
6. How data protection regulations can alter consumers’ purchasing behavior.

Research Focus: Platform Self Regulation, Platform Governance, Information Privacy

Methodology: Econometrics, ML (Deep Learning), Textual Analysis, Field Experiments

You can find my CV Summary here and Full CV here.

Here are some of my research papers that highlight my current research interests and industry collaborations. Please refer to my curriculum vitae for a list of all my published/working papers

Media Coverage of my paper on Forgoing Screening in Airbnb : Snider Focus

Media Coverage for my Android Privacy Policy Paper : ZDNet , International Business Times , Smith Brain Trust , Maryland Today

Media Coverage for my Startup Accelerator Paper : Snider Focus

Growing Platforms by Adding Complementors without a Contract

Status: Information Systems Research (Forthcoming) (Joint work with Allen Li) Grubhub added "non-partnered" restaurants to its platform. Some restaurants complained and Californian regulators banned this practice. We use these two shocks to study the economics of non-contracted partnerships ...
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Delaying Informed Consent: An Empirical Investigation of Mobile Apps’ Upgrade Decisions

Status: Management Science (Forthcoming) (Joint work with Siva Viswanathan) Android enhanced how consumers control their private data and provided developers a time-flexibility to adopt this policy. Some apps intentionally delayed adoption. What happens to their Play-Store marketplace outcomes? ...
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Token Tradability as a Platform Governance Mechanism: Evidence from a Policy Change

Status: Conference Submission Stage. (Joint work with Yuxin Geng and Chenshuo Sun) We show that enabling tradability of platform specific digital token without active value management hurts platform and user engagement. Strategic sellers and money illusion are responsible ...
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Location Divide in Digital Platforms? Evidence from a policy change

Status: Journal Submission Stage. (Joint work with Lanfei Shi and Shun Ye) Amazon changed a policy to disclose sellers’ business information (including sellers’ location) to increase transparency. However, disclosing the location negatively affected international sellers, immaterial of quality ...
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Using Smart TVs to Improve Linear TV Content Engagement: Evidence from a Large-Scale Randomized Field Experiment

Status: Journal Submission Stage. (Joint work with Siva Viswanathan and Catherine Tucker) A large-scale randomized field experiment to improve the efficacy of Broadcast content consumption on Smart-TV by leveraging multi-screen connectivity to smart devices such as smart phones ...
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Seed Accelerators and Information Asymmetries: Evidence from Corporate Venture Capital Investments

Status: Major Revision at Management Science (Joint work with Peng Huang) A comprehensive study of how seed accelerators help investors in addressing the assessment and valuation problem of startups and aiding them in achieving their diverse investment goals ...
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Who Forgoes Screening in Online Markets and When? Evidence from Airbnb

Status: MIS Quarterly December 2021 (Joint work with Siva Viswanathan, Rajshree Agarwal and Shun Ye) An investigation of Airbnb’s policy change that allowed hosts to voluntarily forgo screening and how that improved outcomes for a sub-section of hosts ...
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I currently teach Information Technology in Business and Society (TECH UB 1) at Stern School of Business, NYU. TECH UB 1 focuses on how digital technologies are fundamentally different from other technologies. The course covers fundamentals of digital technologies, internet technologies, platform ecosystem and database systems, among others.

IT in Business and Society (TECH UB 1) – Spring 2021 (2 sections, 92 students), Fall 2021 (2 sections, 120 students), Fall 2022 (3 sections, 162 students)
• Teaching Evaluation: Over 4.5/5.0 in each section so far.
• I received a congratulatory letter from the Stern Undergraduate Dean for my teaching outcomes throughout the years.

During my two terms as an instructor in Database Systems (with lab) at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, I have also covered basics of Data Mining, Data Visualization and Frontiers of Data Science. I’m thrilled to have received Distinguished Teaching Award in my first attempt at teaching.

Database Systems (BMGT402) – Spring 2018 (38 students, IS/Business Analytics Major)
• Teaching Evaluation: 4.72/5.00
• Recipient, Distinguished Teaching Award 2017-2018 (Top 10% among all Faculty & Student instructors)

Database Systems (BMGT402) – Fall 2018 (38 students, IS/Business Analytics Major)
• Teaching Evaluation: 4.87/5.00

Here are some of the Awards and Grants that I have received during my Ph.D. journey

2023

Center for Global Economy and Business Spring 2023 Research Grant – A matching grant by CGEB to conduct research that aligns with the center’s mission.

2022

• WISE 2022 Best Student Paper (Finalist) – For a joint work with Peiyan Yu (student) and Prof. Anindya Ghose, both from NYU Stern Tech Group.
• Center for Global Economy and Business Fall 2023 Research Grant
• Center for Global Economy and Business Spring 2023 Research Grant
• NET Institute 2022 Summer Research Grant – For an ongoing research with Lanfei Shi (UVa) and Shun Ye(GMU)
• Google Cloud Research Credits Grant – I believe every academic who applies, gets it 🙂

2021

• NET Institute 2021 Summer Research Grant – For an ongoing research with Allen Li (Wisconsin)
• Smith Outstanding Dissertation Award – UMD Smith’s annual dissertation award

2020

• Frank T. Paine Award for Academic Achievement – One of the two most prestigious awards for a doctoral student at R.H. Smith School of Business

2019

• Allan N. Nash Outstanding Doctoral Student Award – One of the two most prestigious awards for a doctoral student at R.H. Smith School of Business
• Distinguished Teaching Award AY 2017-2018 (Top 10% among all Smith School instructors)
• Nancy S. and Edward F. Ebert Graduate Award in Free Enterprise by Ed Snider Center for Enterprise and Markets
• Best Paper Proceedings, Entrepreneurship Track – AOM Annual Meeting
• Outstanding Graduate Assistant Award, Graduate School at UMD
• NSF Student Travel Grant – to present at WEIS 2019 (Harvard, Cambridge)
• OCIS Travel Grant – to participate at OCIS Doctoral Consortium at AOM 2019
• International Conference Student Support Award – to present at WISE 2019 (LMU, Munich)
• Jacob K. Goldhaber Travel Grant – to present at SCECR 2019 (CUHK, Hong Kong)

2018

• Computation Grant for Big Data Research by the Ed Snider Center
• Summer Research Fellowship by UMD Graduate School ($5000)
• Financial Aid to complete 5-course specialization in Deep Learning by Deeplearning.ai
• Travel Grant – To participate in Wharton Innovation Doctoral Symposium (WINDS 2018)

2017

• Research Grant by the Ed Snider Center

2016

• Research Grant by the DIGITS Center
• Dean’s Fellowship, Spring 2016

2015

• Dean’s Fellowship, Fall 2015

Since early 2023, I’ve started to document important policy changes that platforms across the globe have been introducing. I compile them on a bi-weekly in my substack, Platform Policy Research (Click Here). I encourage you to subscribe to my substack if you prefer receiving them in an email.

I have been a passionate quizzer (trivia master) and have gained immensely from the quizzing community. I ventured into writing Quiz books as an attempt to contribute back to the community that nurtured me.

Book 1: Blitz the IT Quiz Book: I wrote this book during my freshman year at college (over a decade ago). Sapna Book House, a reputed publisher from Karnataka, India published this book during my sophomore year. Currently, the 6th (2018) edition is in circulation

Book 2: Kryptonite the IT Quiz book: This book was published in 2011, just before I started my MBA. The 2nd edition is currently in circulation and the 3rd edition is in the pipeline.

Read more about my books here

Prior to/Along with pursuing my academic research, I have dabbled with and have developed a few alternative passions.

Trivia/Quizzing

Volunteering