Announcement from Board of Trustees Chair, Richard Greenawalt
A message from President-elect Antonio Merlo
Drexel University’s Board of Trustees has confirmed by a unanimous vote political economist and academic, Antonio Merlo, PhD as the 16th president in the University’s 133-year history. Merlo, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of New York University’s Faculty of Arts & Science, will succeed Interim President Denis P. O’Brien and begin his tenure at Drexel on July 1, 2025.
“Dr. Merlo is the ideal leader to uphold Drexel’s values and guide the University into its next chapter,” said Richard Greenawalt, chair of Drexel’s Board of Trustees. “His commitment to academic entrepreneurship and his proven success in bringing together faculty, students, scholars, and practitioners to address critical societal challenges are particularly vital as we move forward with strategic institutional priorities, including an academic transformation already underway, and focus on building long-term financial resilience.”
Merlo, who earned his PhD in economics at NYU, has since 2019 led NYU Arts & Science, the university’s largest academic unit, comprising three schools, and dozens of departments, research centers, institutes and language and cultural houses. Under Merlo’s guidance, the academic unit’s 1,100 faculty serve more than 16,000 undergraduate and graduate students of Arts & Science and every undergraduate across NYU through the core curriculum.
A highly accomplished scholar, Dr. Merlo is recognized as an administrator who leverages academic strengths, fosters community, and promotes scholarship and collaboration across departments. Under his leadership, NYU Arts & Science established five new centers: innovative hubs for cross-disciplinary, cross-school research and unique opportunities for students. He also established the Arts & Science Office of Research, which has been instrumental in facilitating large-scale interdisciplinary collaborations, offering strategic guidance, breaking down silos and bridging cultural and translational divides across disciplines. As a result, the total externally funded research portfolio expanded from about $300 million in 2018 to about $450 million in 2023. Merlo oversaw the hiring of 120 tenure-line faculty and the completion of a six-story new home for the College of Arts & Science. Construction has begun on his vision for integrated science, prioritizing multidisciplinary approaches to discovery. The first new space will bring environmental scientists and biological anthropologists together in a maker-space model with shared instrumentation and cross-pollination of methodologies.
Merlo also prioritized fundraising, right-sizing staff and deploying engagement and outreach strategies with measurable results. In 2024, NYU Arts & Science had the most productive year of giving in its history.
“This is an exciting moment in the history of Drexel University,” said Interim President Denis O’Brien. “Dr. Merlo is not only a brilliant scholar, but he is also a leader with a long track record of bringing people together around a common goal and motivating them to achieve it. He is the type of president that will energize the Drexel community as he guides us onward, to the bright future of this esteemed institution.”
Merlo’s career in higher education began at the University of Minnesota where he joined the faculty in 1992 as an assistant professor with a tenure track appointment after completing his doctoral studies. He spent six years at the university, advancing to associate professor of economics and also serving as an adjunct consultant in the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, before returning to NYU as an associate professor of economics and politics from 1998-2000.
Throughout his career, Merlo established himself as a premier scholar willing to take on new challenges and shoulder the responsibilities of being a leader. Immediately prior to his return to New York, Merlo spent five years at Rice University, serving as the George A. Peterkin Professor of Economics and chair of the Economics Department, founding director of the Rice Initiative for the Study of Economics and earning an appointment as dean of its School of Social Sciences in 2016. In this position, Merlo was instrumental in completing a major fundraising effort which supported the construction of a state-of-the-art academic building, endowed chairs and graduate and undergraduate student fellowships. He also partnered with government agencies and nonprofit groups to establish a public policy research institute.
Merlo also developed strong ties to Philadelphia during his academic career, spending 14 years on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania — from 2000 to 2014 — where he was the Lawrence R. Klein Professor of Economics, the chair of the Economics Department, Director of the Penn Institute for Economic Research, a research associate in the Population Studies Center and a member of the advisory board of Penn’s Center for Italian Studies.
Through his work with the Penn Institute for Economic Research, Merlo convened a Conference on Crime and Public Policy and founded an annual Conference on Political Economy. He also played a key role in fundraising to establish a dissertation fellowship in economics and distinguished visitors program, and established student exchange and research collaborations with Bocconi University in Italy and the Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo in Mexico.
During his time at Penn, Merlo was also recognized for his scholarship and teaching, earning the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching in 2009, and Irving B. Kravis Prize for Distinction in Undergraduate Teaching in Economics on five separate occasions. He also received an honorary Master of Arts from the institution in 2000.
“Dr. Merlo is truly a rising star in higher education. He has championed new initiatives and has taken on leadership roles at every institution that he has served, while endearing himself to students, faculty and staff along the way,” said Trustee Mike Lawrie ’77, chair of Drexel’s presidential search committee. “Our committee engaged in a thorough and extensive search for Drexel’s next president and Dr. Merlo is by far the best fit for our community and our institution. I am excited to see what lies ahead for Drexel under his leadership.”
Merlo is a first-generation college graduate. He completed his undergraduate education in 1987, earning a Laurea summa cum laude in economics and social sciences from Bocconi University in Milan, before emigrating to the United States to continue his studies at NYU.
Merlo is a scholar of political economy, policy analysis, public economics, bargaining theory and applications, and empirical microeconomics. His research, which has been funded by the National Science Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council of England, has centered on the economic impact of public policy and the organizational structure of the political sector. Merlo has also published extensively on how the economy contributes to trends in voting, crime and household economics.
He has authored articles in leading economics journals, including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of Political Economy, and the Review of Economic Studies. In 2018, he authored an innovative political economy textbook for undergraduates, "Political Economy and Policy Analysis" (Routledge) and has authored dozens of book chapters during his academic career.
Merlo has been recognized with numerous honors and distinction for his scholarship, including being elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society; delivering the Pareto Lecture in Economics and Social Sciences; being named a Peden Senior Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge; and earning the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching. He served as co-editor of the Journal of Public Economics, from 2003-10, the International Economic Review, from 2000-04; and the associate editor of the Journal of Economic Theory, from 2000-10, and Review of Economic Dynamics, from 2001-05.
His professional affiliations include serving as a research fellow at the Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute for Economic Research, and at the Institutions and Economic Performance Programme and Public Policy Programme at the Centre for Economic Policy Research; a research associate in the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Program on Political Economy; and a member the president’s advisory board of Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business.
In addition to his academic contributions, Merlo has been a dedicated and vibrant supporter of student life within each of his campus communities. He served as head coach of the club water polo teams at Rice, Penn and NYU and is a three-time recipient of the Collegiate Water Polo Association’s Coach of the Year Award.
“Because of its fundamental mission of evolving to meet the moment and its visionary experiential education model, I believe Drexel is an institution poised to accomplish great things in the coming years,” Merlo said. “While I am truly grateful for the many opportunities NYU has given me to grow as a scholar and a leader throughout my career, I am excited to begin my journey with Drexel and to help the University realize its tremendous potential. The coming years will undoubtedly bring significant changes to higher education, but they also present tremendous opportunities for institutions like Drexel. To be part of the next chapter in this University’s proud history is truly an honor.”
Merlo’s selection marks the culmination of a comprehensive effort led by Lawrie as chair of the presidential search committee, which included trustees, faculty members, students and administrators. Merlo will begin his tenure as Drexel’s 16th president on July 1, 2025.
“I extend my sincere gratitude to the search committee, comprised of trustees, faculty, students and senior administrators, and led by Mike Lawrie, for their dedication and efforts in conducting a comprehensive search in less than six months,” Greenawalt said. “They made an excellent choice in nominating a candidate to the Board of Trustees who truly embodies Drexel’s values and is committed to dynamically leading our institution well into the future.”
Greenawalt will be retiring as chair of the Board, a position in which he has served since 2008. He will be replaced by Lawrie, a 1977 LeBow College of Business alumnus and longtime Drexel trustee. Lawrie is a globally recognized business and technology leader, he is founder and CEO of The Lawrie Group, which is a private company providing CEO consulting, business services and the management of a private equity fund. He is also founder, chair and CEO of TLG Acquisition One Corp., a publicly traded SPAC on the New York Stock Exchange.