Audra Wormald

Audra Wormald’s research is focused on understanding industry emergence and entrepreneurship as engines for social and economic change, particularly in developing economies. Her research underscores the importance of experimentation by both market and non-market actors for sustained innovative solutions to thorny societal problems.

She uses multiple methods to study rich, often hand-collected, quantitative and qualitative data.

​In one of her projects, Dr. Wormald is examining the emergence and evolution of the global mobile money industry to understand how digital platforms can be used to improve financial inclusion.

She also is looking at how non-profits can encourage enterprise and markets to reduce post-harvest loss, food waste and hunger by studying technology adoption and innovation by smallholder mango farmers in Kenya.

Finally, Dr. Wormald is examining the role of entrepreneurship training in enabling decision-making under high uncertainty for Tanzanian entrepreneurs in the agri-business sector.

Her teaching interests include strategy and entrepreneurship.

Before she began her academic career, she worked at Berkeley Research Group, an economic and litigation consulting firm in Washington, D.C.

She completed her PhD in strategic management and entrepreneurship at the R.H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. She earned her BS in mathematical economics, magna cum laude from the University of Richmond.