Sustainable Finance/ESG, Corporate finance, and its connection with capital markets and asset pricing, corporate debt and banking

AFIN8010 Environmental Finance (Sustainable Finance from 2026)

AFIN 613 Financial Statement Analysis and Modelling

AFIN 708 Corporate Finance for Master by Research

AFIN 808 Corporate Finance

MQBS Faculty Board (Academic Staff Member)

Gender Equity Committee Member

Macquarie University Research Higher Degree Thesis Examination Committee (TESC) Member

Westpec Training program Academic Advisor 

2017  Beiqi Lin (Honors with unversity Medal) on the project CEO Turnover and Bankrupt Firms’ Emergence, Co-supervision with Dr Kelvin Tan 

2018   Daniel Byers (PhD candidate) on the project Machine Learning in Finance, external advisor 

2018-present   Yi Zheng (PhD candidate) on the project Debt Covenants, Relationship Lending and Creditor Control Rights, Co-supervision with Professor Jing Shi

2018-present   Evonne Yu (PhD candidate) on the project Commodity Exposure and Natural Hedging, Co-supervision with Dr Shane Magee

2019-present   Chloe Chen (PhD candidate, awarded Dean's Excellence Award) on the project bank loan contracting, principal supervisor

2021-present    Louis Li (Mres), principal supervisor

2022-present    Den Stanford (PhD candidate) on the regulatory reporting in the financial markets, principal supervisor

Dr Clara Zhou is an Associate Professor of Finance at Macquarie Business School.

Dr Zhou is a finance scholar with expertise in corporate finance, banking, and climate finance. Her research has been published in internationally recognized journals such as the Journal of Corporate Finance, Journal of Banking and Finance, Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, and Journal of Empirical Finance. Her work addresses critical issues at the intersection of financial markets and sustainability.

Dr Zhou currently serves as Associate Editor of the Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Deputy Editor of Accounting and Finance, and Guest Editor for The British Accounting Review and Emerging Markets Review. She has also led special issues for the Pacific-Basin Finance Journal and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Information Systems. She regularly reviews for leading journals including Management Science, Journal of Corporate Finance, and Journal of Banking and Finance.

She has held visiting academic appointments at several international institutions, including the University of Georgia, the University of Virginia, Hanken School of Economics, the University of Göttingen, and Cornell University. She received her Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Queensland, where she also served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and Lecturer before joining Macquarie University.

At Macquarie Business School, Dr Zhou is the Director of Research and Training in the Department of Applied Finance and currently serves as the Director of Research Higher Degree Training. She teaches sustainable finance and corporate finance and is deeply engaged in Ph.D. supervision and mentorship. Her doctoral students have presented at leading international conferences and published in high-quality finance journals.

In service to the profession, Dr Zhou is a board member of the Financial Research Network (FIRN) and serves on the Technical Committee for the Finance Track at AFAANZ. Within the university, Dr Zhou previously served as an elected academic staff member on the Macquarie Business School Faculty Board, a member of the Gender Equity Committee, and a member of the Macquarie University Research Higher Degree Thesis Examination Committee (TESC). She also served as an academic advisor to Westpac’s training program. Dr Zhou actively engages with both academic and policy communities, and her research has contributed to discussions on sustainable finance and financial regulation.