Biography
Associate Professor of Finance at the UWA Business School — CFA charterholder, certified FRM, and researcher in sustainable finance and credit markets.
Dr. Rui Zhong is an Associate Professor of Finance at the UWA Business School, The University of Western Australia, where he coordinates the Master of Applied Finance program and serves as principal contact for the university’s affiliation programs with the CFA Institute and the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP). He is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) and a certified Financial Risk Manager (FRM).
His research interests focus on sustainable finance, ESG, energy finance, credit derivatives, financial risk management, investments and corporate finance. His work appears in leading journals including the Journal of Accounting Research, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Financial Markets, Journal of Banking & Finance, Journal of Financial Stability, European Financial Management, International Review of Finance and Quantitative Finance.
His research on mandatory ESG disclosure around the world — the #1 most-cited article in the Journal of Accounting Research over the last five years (Google Scholar Metrics) and a finalist for the 2025 FIR-PRI “Finance & Sustainability” Awards — was ranked #3 most-read business school sustainability research by the Financial Times in 2023 and was cited in the SEC’s final climate risk disclosure rules in March 2024.
He obtained his Ph.D. in Finance from the joint Ph.D. program (with McGill University, HEC Montréal and UQAM) at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, his Master in Financial Risk Management from Simon Fraser University, and his Bachelor of Economics from Nankai University. Before joining UWA, he was an associate professor in finance at the Central University of Finance and Economics and Scholar-in-Residence at Concordia University.
Education & career
Four connected research streams
Anchored in how markets price sustainability, climate and credit risk.
Sustainable Finance & ESG
Mandatory ESG disclosure, sustainable finance taxonomies, green bonds and loans, the UN Global Compact and corporate SDG engagement — and how they reshape global capital flows.
Climate, Energy & Biodiversity
Climate change litigation, decarbonization and corporate policy, fossil-fuel transition pathways, and the emerging pricing of biodiversity risk in corporate transactions.
Credit Markets & Derivatives
Credit default swaps, credit spreads, price discovery across equity and CDS markets, empty creditors and the structure of credit derivative markets.
Risk, Investments & Corporate Finance
Stock price crash risk, political uncertainty, liquidity and volatility risk, quantitative easing, and corporate financial policy including M&A.