Home

I am a PhD candidate at Harvard Business School. I study strategy and entrepreneurship with a focus on how broadly available technologies, such as AI and fintech, produce divergent firm outcomes and reshape demand, competitive interactions, and markets.  

My research is published in Management Science, forthcoming in Management Science, and under revision at the Review of Financial Studies. It is featured in outlets including: MIT Sloan Management Review, Amazon Science, The Economist, NPR, INSEAD Knowledge, Wharton Mack Institute, J-PAL, VoxDev, Berkeley Haas, among others. 

I use causal inference with rich large-scale proprietary data, field experiments, AI, and applied theory. I have won large research awards, including OpenAI, IGC, and Grand Challenges, many Best Paper Prizes, as well as the INFORMS/MSOM Award for Responsible Research. 

I received my bachelor's in statistics and economics, and master's in economics from the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Prior to Harvard I worked as a policy researcher with the University of Cape Town and Innovations for Poverty Action, and the director of data at a social business.

My committee includes Juan Alcácer, Dennis A. Yao, and F. Christopher Eaglin

I am on the 2026/2027 academic job market. 

Contact 

rclarke@hbs.edu

LinkedIn

Google Scholar

Affiliations/pages: 

Harvard Website

HBS Profile Interview

AI Institute, Harvard

Innovations for Poverty Action