Emma Harrington

Emma Harrington is an economist and Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Virginia whose research is reshaping how organizations think about work, productivity, and collaboration. Her scholarship focuses on labor economics, workplace design, remote and hybrid work, and organizational performance, combining rigorous data analysis with practical insights for business leaders and policymakers.

Harrington is the co-author of "In Person: How Working Together Fuels Creativity, Productivity, and Growth," an evidence-based examination of how face-to-face collaboration drives innovation, learning, and organizational success in the modern workplace. Drawing on research spanning millions of work hours across Fortune 500 companies, startups, and other organizations, the book offers a data-driven framework for designing effective hybrid work policies.

Before joining the University of Virginia, Harrington was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University after earning her PhD in Economics from Harvard University. Her research has been published in leading journals, including Science, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the American Economic Journal, and has been featured by The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, NPR, Bloomberg, and CBS News. She is widely recognized as one of the leading voices on the future of work and the economics of organizational performance.