Research Associate, BAC Agentic AI and Decentralized Finance

Job Title: Research Associate, BAC Agentic AI and Decentralized Finance

University-Level Unit: School of Business

Faculty/Department-Level Unit: Analytics And Operations

Employee Category: Research Staff

Location_ONB: Kent Ridge Campus

Posting Start Date: 10/07/2026

Job Overview

The NUS Business Analytics Centre (BAC), a joint initiative between NUS Business School and the School of Computing, oversees the Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) ( https://msba.nus.edu.sg/ ) programme, ranked No. 1 in Asia and among the top 10 globally. BAC has established strong partnerships with leading industry players and top academic institutions through collaborative education and real-world projects.

We are seeking a highly motivated Research Assistant to join an exciting research project on AI Agents and Decentralized Finance (DeFi). The project aims to develop next-generation autonomous AI agents capable of reasoning, planning, interacting with blockchain ecosystems, and executing complex financial workflows securely and efficiently.

The successful candidate will work closely with faculty members, industry collaborators, and graduate researchers to design, implement, and evaluate cutting-edge AI agent architectures for Web3 applications.

This position offers an excellent opportunity to work at the intersection of:

Large Language Models (LLMs)

AI Agents

Multi-agent systems

Blockchain and Web3

Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

AI security and trustworthy AI

Duties and Responsibilities

The researcher will contribute to both research and system development, including:

Design and implement AI agent frameworks using state-of-the-art Agentic AI technologies.

Develop autonomous and multi-agent systems capable of planning, reasoning, and executing blockchain-based tasks.

Build integrations between AI agents and blockchain infrastructures (e.g., Ethereum-compatible networks).

Develop software modules for interacting with smart contracts, wallets, and DeFi protocols.

Implement Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), memory systems, tool calling, and agent orchestration.

Conduct literature reviews on AI Agents, LLMs, blockchain, and DeFi.

Evaluate AI agent performance through benchmarking, experimentation, and security testing.

Collaborate with industry partners to translate business requirements into research prototypes.

Prepare technical reports, research publications, and project documentation.

Support project demonstrations and technology transfer activities.

Qualifications

Master's degree in a relevant field.

Experience with modern AI development frameworks.

Good knowledge in Blockchain, Smart Contract, and DeFi applicants

Proven experience delivering industry-facing or commercial AI solutions.

Strong communication skills and ability to work with non-technical stakeholders.

Other Requirements

Skills and experience in one or more of the following would be beneficial to the research projects:

AI Agents

Multi-agent systems

Agent orchestration

Tool calling

Function calling

Workflow automation

Planning and reasoning algorithms

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

Blockchain & Web3

Ethereum ecosystem

Solidity smart contracts

Hardhat or Foundry

Web3.py

Ethers.js

Wallet integration

Smart contract interaction

Decentralized Finance (DeFi)

Experience with one or more of:

Automated Market Makers (AMMs)

Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs)

Lending protocols

Yield farming

Staking

Cross-chain protocols

Liquidity pools

Tokenomics