Our Student Team
Meet the students who help run the Marshall Behavioral Research Lab.
Kushaan Agarwal
Class of 2028 | Joined Fall 2025
Industrial & Systems Engineering · Minor: Business Finance
Kushaan Agarwal, originally from New Delhi, is a junior at USC studying Industrial and Systems Engineering with a minor in Business Finance. His curiosity about how people, technology, and organizations interact has shaped his work at the USC Marshall Behavioral Research Lab and inspired research on leadership, financial literacy, and the digital transformation of The New York Times. Through internships focused on newsroom and product innovation at the New York Post and Dainik Bhaskar Group, as well as interviewing prominent Indian business leaders through his initiative, Unicorn Dreams, he has developed a passion for storytelling, emerging technology, and audience behavior. He hopes to build a career at the intersection of media, technology, and business, helping shape how the media industry innovates and connects with audiences.
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Alexander “Alex” Alonzo
Class of 2027 | Joined Fall 2025
Business Administration · Minor: Foundations of Data Science
Alex Alonzo is originally from LA and now studies Finance with a Data Science minor at USC Marshall. On campus, he's President of the Trojan Consulting Group and on e-board for the Latino Business Student Association. He interned at Capital One and will be joining Bain & Company full-time. His love for working with data is what drew him to the lab. Outside of work, he loves the beach, trying new restaurants, and a good board game — chess and Catan especially.
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Atvika Gaur
Class of 2028 | Joined Fall 2025
Business Administration (Marketing) · Minor: AI Applications
Atvika Gaur, originally from Delhi, India, is a student at the USC Marshall School of Business with interests in marketing, analytics and artificial intelligence. Her past marketing and analytics internships sparked her curiosity about what drives people's decisions, leading her to join the Marshall Behavioral Research Lab, where she is excited to gain hands-on research experience and learn how behavioral insights apply to real-world marketing. An extrovert who loves meeting new people, she is actively involved in student organizations across USC and enjoys learning from new experiences and perspectives. She hopes to build a career at the intersection of marketing, data and emerging technology, using insights to create ideas that genuinely connect with people.
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Samruddhi Sanjay Kale
Class of 2027 | Joined Fall 2026
M.S. Applied Data Science
Samruddhi Sanjay Kale is pursuing an M.S. in Applied Data Science at USC, driven by a curiosity that goes beyond what the numbers say to why people behave the way they do. With a passion for turning complex data into meaningful insights, she was drawn to behavioral research as a way to bridge analytical thinking with the human stories behind the data. At the USC Marshall Behavioral Research Lab, she is expanding that perspective through hands-on research while exploring the intersection of data, technology, and human decision-making. She hopes to carry that curiosity into a career where she can use data and emerging technologies to solve meaningful real-world problems.
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Jia “Jessie” Lyu
Class of 2027 | Joined Fall 2026
Economics & Mathematics · Minor: Business Finance
Jia Lyu is a senior at USC studying Economics and Mathematics, with minors in Business Finance and Applied Analytics. Her experiences in PE, equity research, macro strategy, and academic research have made her increasingly curious about how people and organizations make decisions. She enjoys using quantitative analysis to explore real-world business and economic questions, while also thinking about the behavioral factors behind the numbers. At MBRL, she hopes to deepen that perspective and carry it into her future work in finance and applied economics.
Jake Mariani
Class of 2027 | Joined Fall 2025
Biochemistry · Minor: Business Finance
Jake Mariani is a senior at USC, majoring in Biochemistry and minoring in Business Finance. His path into research grew out of that scientific foundation, joining the Marshall Behavioral Research Lab to apply the same analytical rigor from his coursework to studying decision-making and behavior. He spent this past summer in JPMorgan Chase's Asset-Based Lending group, helping to provide debt solutions to commercial and corporate clients, and he's drawn especially to the intersection of healthcare and finance, an interest rooted in his life sciences background and former pre-med experiences. Post-grad, he will be returning to JPMorgan and hopes to continue down a path that allows him to combine a dual scientific and financial lens.
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Benjamin “Ben” Nguyen
Class of 2027 | Joined Spring 2026
Business Administration (Business Analytics)
Benjamin Nguyen was born and raised in Southern California, specifically Redondo Beach. He transferred to USC in Fall 2025 from El Camino College, where he now studies Business Administration with an emphasis in Business Analytics. Since community college, Ben has started ventures like Grace Cleaning, a fully remote cleaning company, through which he has made a positive impact on the community while learning the ins and outs of being a business owner. One of the biggest lessons from this process is that we have limited time on this earth, so why not learn how people interact and use that understanding to make a positive impact!
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Desire Ojuri
Class of 2027 | Joined Fall 2026
Business Administration (Business Analytics) · Minor: Artificial Intelligence
Desire Ojuri is a USC Marshall student studying Business Administration with an emphasis in Business Analytics and a minor in Artificial Intelligence. Her experience at PwC paired with her curiosity about how data, AI, and human behavior influence business decisions sparked her interest in research and using technology to solve complex problems. As President of USC's Pan-African Student Association, she brings a global perspective to her work and a passion for creating impact across industries and communities. Looking ahead, Desire hopes to build a career at the intersection of strategy, technology, and energy, with the long-term goal of becoming an entrepreneur and contributing to the growth of Africa's energy infrastructure.
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He “Steve” Ren
Class of 2027 | Joined Spring 2025
Economics & Mathematics · Minors: Business Finance, Technology Commercialization
Steve (Ren, He) was raised in Beijing and studies Economics/Mathematics at USC. He joined the Marshall Behavioral Research Lab during his sophomore spring semester while taking behavioral economics and game theory classes, hoping to contribute any of those insights to MBRL's research. Alongside his pursuit of a finance career in Hong Kong, he is deeply fascinated by behavioral finance theories and considers academic papers on pertinent topics a great complement to the daily reading of WSJ. He believes that one's way of understanding people, reading personalities, using languages, and balancing intensity with flexibility says a great deal about who they are. He loves photography. He considers ballroom dance, calculus 3, and western philosophy the most interesting classes he has taken at USC, and thinks the coolest thing imaginable (and within his capabilities) would be flying a Boeing 777.
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Abhi Singh
MBA · Class of 2027 | Joined Fall 2026
Master of Business Administration (Full-Time)
Abhi Singh is a full-time MBA student at USC Marshall, where he is exploring finance, entrepreneurship, communication, and organizational leadership. Originally from Mumbai, India, he studied Industrial Engineering before working in operations consulting, partnering closely with senior stakeholders to improve supply chains across retail, consumer, and manufacturing clients. Now in his final year, Abhi recently interned at BCG, helping Power & Utilities clients set up the power generation infrastructure needed to support the AI revolution. As AI reshapes how we work, he believes EQ will only become more important and hopes to better understand how people's backgrounds, personalities, and motivations shape who they are before returning to consulting.
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Shyam Subramanyam
Class of 2027 | Joined Fall 2025
Business Administration (Finance) · Minor: AI Applications
Shyam Subramanyam, born in New Jersey and raised in Toronto, studies Business Administration at USC Marshall with a minor in Artificial Intelligence Applications. In his free time, you can find him reading, making lattes for him and his friends, or rewatching the 007 series for the nth time. He enjoys his work with MBRL as it connects him with students from across disciplines, helps him learn more about the research process through discussion with PhDs, and allows him the privilege of spending time with fellow team members. He aspires to keep learning, keep an open mind, and help others.
Leena Van
Class of 2027 | Joined Fall 2025
Business Administration · Minor: AI Applications
Leena, originally from Dallas, is a senior at USC Marshall studying business with a strong interest in technology, innovation, and consumer behavior. Her experiences across consulting and entertainment have allowed her to explore how emerging technologies can solve real-world problems and create more intuitive, human-centered experiences. Her curiosity about how people think, make decisions, and interact with technology led her to research, and she hopes to build a career in product management where she can create products that make a meaningful impact.
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