Ayaj Rana

Welcome! I am a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR), advised by Adam Seth Litwin, Forrest Briscoe, JR Keller, and Michael Maffie, with expected graduation in May 2027. 

My dissertation asks how professionals retain authority, sustain identity, and balance exchange relationships as multiparty digital marketplaces, rather than employers, increasingly organize expert work.

Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative methods and collecting data from archival records, interviews, and original surveys of professionals on two global expert work marketplaces, I answer this question across three papers.  

My research has received the Academy of Management (AOM) Best Paper Award, OB Division's Award for Outstanding Paper with Practical Implications for Management, and Cornell ILR School's Benjamin Miller Award.  

At Cornell, I also serve as a Graduate Resident Fellow in Alice Cook House, one of Cornell's residential colleges. In this live-in role, I mentor 45 undergraduates each year and support the house's living-learning programs.

Before Cornell, I earned an MPP at Georgia State University's Andrew Young School and studied high-tech entrepreneurship as a Georgia Innovative Economic Development Intern at Georgia Tech's Enterprise Innovation Institute. 

Prior to my Ph.D., I served as a faculty member at the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh's premier public university, and spent six years consulting across the public, private, and nonprofit organizations.