Her research concerns the economic effects of fiscal policy, focusing on the impact of policy on firm production, investment and pricing decisions and individual consumption decisions. She has studied how excise taxes on oil production affect the extraction decisions of domestic producers, the effectiveness of federal tax credits for R&D, and investigated the composition and importance of corporate deferred taxes. She has also been working on projects relating to the interaction of regulatory policy and taxation, how tax liabilities evolve over individual's lifetimes and how prices affect food choices She is a recipient of the National Tax Association Dissertation Award. Rao completed her PhD in economics at MIT in June 2010 where she previously earned her undergraduate degree. Prior to graduate school, she worked at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Semester