Meet Antonio Merlo
President Antonio Merlo
Antonio Merlo, PhD, became Drexel University’s 16th president on July 1, 2025. An accomplished higher education leader, scholar and professor, Merlo joined Drexel after serving since 2019 as the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science at New York University, the institution’s largest academic unit comprising of 1,600 faculty and staff members, three schools, dozens of departments, research centers, institutes and cultural houses. In this role, Merlo worked meticulously and strategically to expand the limits of NYU Arts & Science, overseeing the completion of a new, innovative home for the college, NYU’s founding school; establishing new centers and an office of research; growing research and fundraising dollars; and hiring 120 tenure-line faculty.
Originally from Italy, Merlo, a first-generation college graduate, received his undergraduate degree summa cum laude in economics and social sciences from Bocconi University. He received his doctorate in economics from NYU, where he earned the Dean’s Outstanding Dissertation Award. He also received an honorary Master of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2000.
Merlo’s areas of scholarly interest include political economy, policy analysis, public economics, bargaining theory and applications, and empirical microeconomics. His research interests include the economics of crime, voting, the career decisions of politicians, the formation and dissolution of coalition governments, the industrial organization of the political sector, household bargaining, and the study of the residential housing market. He has published numerous articles in the 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). His numerous awards and honors include being elected a Fellow of the Econometric Society; the Pareto Lecture in Economics and Social Sciences; being a Peden Senior Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge; and the Christian R. and Mary F. Lindback Foundation Award for Distinguished Teaching. In addition, he has been the recipient of the Coach of the Year Award for the Collegiate Water Polo Association in 2013 (Men’s Mid-Atlantic Division), 2017 (Women’s Texas Division), and 2018 (Men’s Texas Division).
Merlo earned his first job as an economics professor at the University of Minnesota, until he was lured back to NYU as a professor of economics and politics. Later, he spent 14 years at the University of Pennsylvania as the Lawrence R. Klein Professor of Economics, also serving as chair of Penn’s Economics Department and director of the Penn Institute for Economic Research. At Rice University in Texas, Merlo served as the Dean of the School of Social Sciences, founding director of the Rice Initiative for the Study of Economics, and the George A. Peterkin Professor of Economics. As a dean at Rice, 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.
In addition to his academic and administrative duties, Merlo has also served as a beloved head coach for both men’s and women’s water polo teams at NYU, Penn and Rice.
Merlo joins Drexel as the University embarks on Academic Transformation, a blueprint for reimagining the institution’s future through the integration of programs and schools, redesign of curriculum and transition to a semester calendar — offering an improved academic experience and value proposition for students. Since his presidential appointment, he has emphasized his commitment to the initiative and his strong belief that it is giving Drexel an advantage, especially when combined with the University’s long-established differentiators, including experiential education.