Carnegie Mellon University
March 04, 2022

Ph.D. Student Awarded Tata Consultancy Services Award for Cryptocurrency Research

Financial Economics Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business, Kevin Mott, has been awarded a Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Presidential Fellowship Award for his research on cryptocurrency exchange design.

The Presidential Fellowship, which will conclude in May 2022, provides important financial support to recruit and retain outstanding graduate students whose work will ensure that Carnegie Mellon maintains its position as an international leader in graduate education and research.

“The generosity of the fellowship will allow me to work on research unencumbered from work requirements, hopefully enabling me to generate higher volumes of higher-quality research over the course of my time in the program,” said Mott.

TCS is an IT services, consulting, and business solutions organization that works with global businesses and is India’s largest industrial conglomerate. TCS has strong academic research relationships with premier global institutes as part of its Co-Innovation Network (COIN) program and has been supporting 300+ Ph.D. scholars from various institutes. Carnegie Mellon and the city of Pittsburgh established a partnership with TCS in 2015.

“We are happy to note that Carnegie Mellon’s Presidential Fellowship this year, supported by TCS, has been awarded to Kevin Mott pursuing Financial Economics at the Tepper School of Business,” said K. Ananth Krishnan, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, TCS. “We wish him the very best in his endeavor.”

The fellowship recognizes and rewards Mott’s research in the burgeoning field of cryptocurrency exchange design. He studies the innovation occurring in today's new financial exchanges: those governing Bitcoin contracts. These large exchanges (constituting tens of billions of dollars in daily trading volume) bend the contracting rules of traditional exchanges, but he is able to glean deep insights regarding the nature of these contracts. In particular, his research explores the effects of insurance on prices and trading volume.

“Kevin's research is modeling the understanding of new markets. It is the kind of work that helps us work toward a more intelligent future,” said Associate Professor of Finance Bryan Routledge. “We are excited about Kevin’s potential and are thrilled that this prestigious fellowship will enable him to continue to explore his research.”

“Being a member of the cross-campus recipients of the TCS Presidential Fellowship is at once humbling and empowering,” said Mott. “Knowing that the university values my research potential as highly as other esteemed recipients gives me the motivation to continue the Carnegie Mellon legacy of excellent research.”