Ph.D. student wins Deloitte Foundation Doctoral Fellowship Award

Eashwar Nagaraj (Ph.D. ‘27) was granted the Deloitte Foundation Doctoral Fellowship Award as one of the top 10 accounting Ph.D. candidates in the United States. 

“I feel deeply grateful to receive recognition from such a prestigious award, which would not have been possible without the mentorship and support from faculty at UF Warrington over the past four years,” Nagaraj said. 

Before the Ph.D. program, Nagaraj worked at Ernst & Young (EY) in transfer pricing. He focused on tax planning, documentation and controversy engagements for clients in the technology, healthcare and advanced manufacturing industries. 

“My experience at EY exposed me to the economics of large multinational corporations and the realities of regulation and enforcement of tax policies,” Nagaraj said. “My research today combines my experience at EY, my background in economics from Miami University and long-term interest in the political economy of corporate regulation.”

Nagaraj’s dissertation examines how transparent companies are about lobbying activities during a tax audit. By using 4.5 trillion precise location pings from a sample of 197 million smartphones, Nagaraj identified when lobbyists move between corporate headquarters, lobbyist offices and IRS offices. When comparing this to companies’ disclosed data, he found 40% of public corporations did not disclose their lobbying visits. 

His research supports the rise of ‘shadow lobbying,’ non-disclosed lobbyist activity, and highlights the need for increased transparency in policymaking and enforcement in corporate lobbying activity. 

“The Ph.D. program at UF has helped shape me as a person and as a future professor because of its collegial culture, rigor and emphasis on prioritizing mental health,” Nagaraj said. “The faculty in the program have given students the freedom, respect and support to pursue projects and fostered a collaborative environment even in an extremely competitive field.”