About me

I’m an associate professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, where I teach the elective course Reimagining Capitalism and serve as the faculty co-chair of the Impact-Weighted Accounts Project. My current research interest focuses on understanding what gives rise to income inequality and how to best measure inequality to develop better strategies for addressing this issue. More broadly, I’m interested in how to measure the impact and value of human capital. I also conduct research on the consequences of corporate taxes and how to detect irregularities in accounting numbers. My research has been published in The Journal of Financial Economics, The Accounting ReviewManagement Science, and The Review of Accounting Studies, among others. My published and working papers can be found on my research page. I also frequently appear in and write for the popular press on issues related to my research. A list of some of my press publications can be found here.

Prior life

Before devoting myself to academia, I received a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and spent four years as a newspaper crime reporter, most recently at the New York Daily News. The journey from journalist to accounting academic was a lot more natural than it sounds… at least to me. During the financial crisis, I decided to pursue an M.B.A. at Columbia Business School in order to better understand the world in which I was living. On Day One of my intro accounting class, I learned the term “balance sheet.” At the end of Day Two, I asked my wonderful professor (who became my dissertation adviser) what I would need to do to earn a Ph.D. in accounting (which I did in 2017). Much like journalism, accounting is storytelling, told by narrators of varying reliability. The goal is to get to the truth, but the path is often convoluted. Sounds exciting, right? Right?!?

Alternate life

I am a devoted runner and a devoted, if sloppy, practitioner of yoga. I do the majority of my traveling by bicycle and lament that I don’t ski often enough. When I wear headphones, I am probably listening to the audio edition of The Economist. I always carry a book with me and do my best to steer every conversation toward what people are reading. A list of recent books I’ve loved can be found on my books page.