Mehrzad B. Baktash is a postdoctoral researcher and teaching associate at the University of Trier. He is a GLO Virtual Young Scholar in the 2023-24 cohort. He completed his PhD in Economics at the University of Trier in 2024. In his doctoral thesis, he investigated the consequences of performance pay on workers' health, well-being, and labor market success.

His research interests include labor, happiness, and personnel economics, with special interests in performance pay, employee well-being, educational mismatch, loneliness, and personality traits. He has published his work in the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Industrial Relations, and Review of Economics of the Household.