Robert C. Merton is University Professor Emeritus at Harvard Business School, where he was the George Fisher Baker Professor of Business Administration from 1988 to 1998 and the John and Natty McArthur University Professor from 1998 until his retirement in 2010.

He is currently the School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, where he previously served on the finance faculty from 1970 until 1988. Merton is past President of the American Finance Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1997 for a new method to determine the value of derivatives.

Professor Merton obtained a B.S. in Engineering Mathematics from Columbia University in 1966, a M.S. in Applied Mathematics from California Institute of Technology in 1967, and a Ph.D. in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Chicago and several foreign universities.

Dr. Merton was named IAFE/SunGard Financial Engineer of the Year in 1993.