Sharnic is in the doctoral program at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. His studies combine the disciplines of economics and psychology. He looked into how educators' estimations of students' abilities influenced their performance. In the context of raising educational standards in developing and middle-income nations, he is particularly curious about the ways in which student and educator perspectives and practices may diverge. Sharnic's work in this area focuses on developing and evaluating individualized interventions that are relevant to policy, and he does it through conducting randomized field trials in South Asia and Latin America.