Senior Behavioral Scientist
The Group: On the Behavioral Team, we conduct original research on financial behavior to help people save and invest their money effectively. We study what works and what doesn’t, and publicize the results broadly.
The Role: Help millions of people reach their financial goals. We are looking for a Senior Behavioral Scientist to help understand and overcome the behavioral obstacles that individual investors and their advisors face when interacting with the markets. You’ll pursue original research alongside a team of like-minded behavioralists and with leading academics from around the country.
Responsibilities:
• Lead investor-focused initiatives, developing our strategy for applying behavioral finance and broader research lessons to financial decision-making and helping investors succeed.
• Conduct original research on investor and advisor behavior, including issues of savings, retirement planning, market timing, and decumulation.
• Design, execute, and analyze large-scale randomized control trials to test your ideas (Morningstar interacts with millions of individual investors and with their advisors).
• Guide junior researchers as they develop original research concepts and execute on them.
• Work with the marketing and product teams to identify and solve pressing questions around investor behavior, and put the answers into practice in our products.
• Speak with the media and industry leaders about your, and the team’s, research findings and products.
Requirements:
• A PhD (or a Masters with appropriate professional experience) in the behavioral sciences, especially behavioral economics or finance.
• A strong interest in applied research and practical application of research lessons.
• Professional experience either managing or mentoring an applied social or behavioral science research team is a great plus.
• Independent, creative thinking about research questions and how to answer them.
• A strong statistical and/or experimental background.
• Experience in public speaking and speaking with the media will be very helpful.
• A love for sharing your expertise and mentoring less-experienced researchers.