Dr Nikeel Kumar is a Research Fellow in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Aviation at RMIT University, where he works on the iMOVE CRC project Advanced Air Mobility Technologies and Achieving Net Zero 2050. He also teaches finance as a sessional academic at the University of Melbourne.
He completed his PhD in Finance at RMIT University in 2026 with a thesis examining the relationship between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and managerial opportunism. His research spans corporate finance, sustainability reporting, corporate governance, and financial reporting quality, with complementary expertise in applied time−series, econometrics and transport economics.
Nikeel has published more than 40 peer−reviewed articles, including 15 in ABDC A−ranked journals such as Finance Research Letters, Applied Economics, and Tourism Economics. His work has attracted over 400 citations and he holds an h−index of 12 (Scopus). He serves on the editorial advisory boards of PLOS ONE and the Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, and reviews for a range of international finance and economics journals.
Alongside his research, Nikeel brings eight years of university teaching experience across Australia and the Pacific, including course coordination at the University of the South Pacific, where he graduated as a double gold medallist.
