Robert Manduca is a Ph.D. student in sociology and social policy at Harvard University. He is interested in the economic outcomes of people and places—why some cities and regions do well while others do poorly—and how individuals are and are not able to participate in the economic growth of their regions. He studies these topics primarily through the use of quantitative methods on large administrative datasets gathered from governments, corporations, and the internet.

Before starting graduate school, he worked as a consultant in fair lending regulation, testing for discrimination in mortgage lending. He received a masters degree in city planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the area of housing, community, and economic development. Before graduate school, he worked on fair lending regulation in the financial economics practice of Charles River Associates. Previously, he studied economics at Swarthmore College.