Student Research Spotlight: Peter Huang

Written by Celesia Smith.

Peter Huang Headshot

Peter Huang

Majors: Canfield BHP, Finance, Math, Economics, Plan II 

Area of Research: Behavioral, Entrepreneurship in Austin, Global Economy & Development

Topics of Interest: Playing and watching soccer, curating Spotify playlists, macroeconomics, podcasts

For some students, research is a way to hone in on a particular career path or develop a specific skill. For others, it serves as an opportunity to diversify one’s knowledge and expand interests. Regardless, research remains a terrific way to get involved with the university. Peter Huang, a senior majoring in Canfield BHP, Finance, Math, Economics, and Plan II, is the latter kind of student– one who enjoys putting his eggs in various baskets. 

During his time at UT, Peter has served in an array of research roles alongside numerous professors, business and non-business alike. In the summer after his sophomore year, Peter elected to conduct unique research alongside finance professor Sam Kruger and IC² Institute’s Professor Elsie Echeverri-Carroll.

“Professor Kruger was working on this really interesting research question. He was basically trying to test if people who commit infidelity are also likely to have more instances of professional misconduct in the workplace,” Peter said. “He tested that by looking at Ashley Madison’s data. Ashley Madison is this dating site that advertises itself as a way to have an affair if you’re married. Back in 2015, there was a big data leak led by hackers who released details on people who had created accounts on the website. Professor Kruger and I took those details and tried to identify the places that those people worked at and then identify, on average, if they too have higher rates of misconduct than people who had comparable occupations, but did not have an account on that site.”

At the same time, Peter was working with Professor Kruger on the Ashley Madison project, he was also working with the IC² Institute on entrepreneurship-centered research with Professor Elsie Echeverri-Carroll. 

“(My project was) looking at different entrepreneurs in Austin and then trying to document what kinds of historical factors shaped the environment of entrepreneurship in Austin. It’s a very big growing startup city (and) big hub of technology, but it hasn’t always been that way,” Peter said. “Back in the seventies or so, Austin was still a largely blue-collar city that relied on manufacturing and so understanding that transition from then to now and documenting the factors that shaped that change was part of my research there.”

More recently, Peter interned at a public policy think tank, the Brookings Institution, where he worked primarily with Professor Eswar Prasad, a Senior Fellow at Brookings and the Tolani Senior Professor of Trade Policy at Cornell University.

“I worked with Professor Prasad in looking at the statistics concerning the money supply in various cryptocurrencies around the world, trying to see how that money supply has changed over time or if COVID had any effect on that and, particularly, understanding the growth of money over time,” Peter said. 

Through all three of these projects, Peter has had the opportunity to grow his knowledge base and work with incredible professors both in and outside of UT. Peter said he happened upon his first research opportunity by having a conversation with his FIN 357H professor, Daniel Neuhann. 

“During my sophomore year, when I was taking that class, I was interested in academia, potentially looking into getting a Ph.D. I reached out to Professor Neuhann to ask him about how he got there and what his interests were and all of those things because I was just trying to sort of assessing if that was the right path for me or not,” he said. “I think that you’ll find most professors are very passionate about their work, otherwise they wouldn’t be doing what they’re doing. (Professor Neuhann) connected me to Professor Sam Kruger, who I ended up working with.”

Regardless of the project, Peter said Canfield BHP supported him in his endeavors and provided him with the skills and community he needed to succeed. From the Canfield BHP professor who helped Peter find his first project to the classes he takes to build various skills, the honors program has certainly been an asset. 

“The smaller (Canfield) BHP classes and nature of the program made me comfortable reaching out to him given I had established somewhat of a rapport with him just by participating in class and asking questions, something that is very fundamental to the Canfield BHP experience– things that translate into connecting with professors,” Peter said. “Another thing is that (Canfield) BHP is helpful in the sense that it gives you a foundation of how to think about business and finance in particular, which is useful when applying to research and internship experiences alike.”

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