Dr Akhtar’s research interests are broad, and include Corporate Finance, Multinationals, Tax, International Finance, Asset Pricing, Welfare/Retirement/Superannuation/Pension systems, Risk Management, Capital Markets, Market Efficiency, Liquidity, Behavioural Finance, Financial Systems, Inequality, Block chain, Big Data, Machine Learning, Digitalisation, Globalisation and Higher Education. Her research interests also include Mergers and acquisitions, Corporate governance, Commodities, Real estate, High frequency trading, peer-to-peer lending, innovation and entrepreneurship, private equity and banking and finance. Her research publications have appeared in leading international and Australian peer-reviewed journals.
Dr Akhtar has received a number of competitive external research grants, with total funding in excess of 1.7 million dollars. She was a recipient of an ARC DECRA Fellowship. She is an active researcher and presents her work regularly at international and Australian conferences including the American Finance Association Conference. A number of her research papers received local and international prestigious awards. She has engaged in invited research visits to several top US Universities, including Harvard, MIT and Stanford among others.
Dr Akhtar has a broad teaching portfolio encompassing both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. She also supervises Honours, Masters and PhD students. She has been awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence and also the “Top Supervisor” Award.
