About
Nalin Kulatilaka serves as the Wing Tat Lee Family Professor in Finance at Boston University's Questrom School of Business. His academic career spans over four decades with significant contributions across finance, health economics, and sustainability.
- PhD, MIT, 1982
- MS, Harvard University, 1977
- BS, Imperial College, 1976
His research bridges finance with critical global challenges, particularly in climate finance (evidenced by 2023 ExxonMobil activism study), health economics (multiple tuberculosis cost analyses in India), and energy transition (distributed electricity resources modeling). Kulatilaka pioneered applications of real options theory to environmental and technological investments, notably in his 2009 'Invisible Green Hand' framework for market-based climate solutions.
His publication trends reveal an evolving interdisciplinary trajectory: early work (2000s) focused on technology licensing and network effects, transitioning to health economics (2020-2022) and contemporary climate finance. Key journals include Journal of Climate Finance, Clinical Infectious Diseases, and Energy Economics, demonstrating methodological versatility across quantitative finance and policy modeling.
While no specific awards are listed in available materials, his work appears in high-impact venues including Harvard Business Review and Academy of Management Review.
Professor Kulatilaka maintains an active research agenda with recent collaborations spanning medical researchers (Sinha, Hochberg), climate policy experts (Kaufmann), and technology scholars (Lin). His office is located in the Rafik B. Hariri Building at 595 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston.
His laboratory work centers on the ROTI-TB modeling framework for tuberculosis intervention economics and climate finance analytics, often partnering with global health institutions and energy policy think tanks.
