Manduca uses high-resolution data based on unemployment insurance records to show that employment in the U.S. metropolitan areas is not centralized but is spatially concentrated—addressing a core question in urban planning and urban economics that concerns the extent to which urban employment is monocentric, polycentric, or diffuse.

Manduca is a doctoral candidate in Sociology and Social Policy at Harvard University. His research focuses on urban economic development and income inequality in the United States.