Lara Cathcart is Professor of Finance at Imperial College London. She is Co-Deputy Head of the Department of Finance and Academic Director of the MSc Finance and MSc Risk Management and Financial Engineering programmes.

Lara holds a PhD in Finance from Birkbeck College, University of London. Her research spans three areas: credit risk, behavioural finance and climate risk. She has a particular interest in sovereign and corporate credit default swap markets, the impact of media on financial markets, and the effect of climate change on the default risk of firms. Her research has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, presented at the American Finance Association, European Finance Association and Western Finance Association conferences, and published in journals including the Journal of Money Credit and Banking, the Journal of Corporate Finance, the Journal of Banking and Finance and the European Journal of Finance. She serves as Associate Editor of the European Journal of Finance and the International Review of Finance. Her work has also been featured in practitioner publications including Risk, Professional Investor, Euromoney and Structured Credit Investor.

Lara has been a committed advocate for gender diversity in finance and academia throughout her career. Since 2024 she has hosted Imperial Business School's annual Women in Finance event, bringing together senior leaders from major financial institutions including the London Stock Exchange Group, HSBC Asset Management, Moody's, Citi and BlackRock to explore how women are reshaping capital markets and redefining leadership in the industry. She co-founded the Gender Committee within Imperial Business School, advancing the School's commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion.

In June 2025 Lara was awarded the Imperial College Medal by President Professor Hugh Brady in recognition of her pioneering contributions to finance education and her enduring commitment to academic excellence, diversity and inclusion over nearly 30 years of service.

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