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. 

My dissertation asks how professionals preserve their authority, their identity, and the balance of their exchange relationships when multi-party markets, rather than employers, organize their work, through digital platforms on which an empowered client evaluates the work and the platform allocates the next opportunity. 

Drawing on archival records, interviews, and original surveys, I answer this question across three solo-authored papers—one revise-and-resubmit at the Academy of Management Journal, one under review at Administrative Science Quarterly, and one reject-and-resubmit at Organization Science.  

My research has received the Academy of Management (AOM) Best Paper Award, AOM 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, mentoring undergraduates and supporting its living-learning programs.

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

I began my academic career as a faculty member at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh and spent six years consulting across the public, private, and nonprofit organizations.