Robert C. Merton, currently Resident Scientist at Dimensional, is the School of Management Distinguished Professor of Finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. He was the George Fisher Baker Professor of Business Administration from 1988 to 1998, and the John and Natty McArthur University Professor from 1998 to 2010 at the Harvard Business School, where he is now University Professor, Emeritus. Professor Merton served on the finance faculty of the Sloan School from 1970 to 1988. He is a former 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. Professor Merton received the Alfred Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Myron Scholes in 1997 for a new method to determine the value of derivatives.

Professor Merton received the inaugural Financial Engineer of the Year Award from the International Association of Financial Engineers, which also elected him a senior fellow. He is the recipient of the Nicholas Molodovsky Award from the CFA Institute, a distinguished fellow of the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance, and a fellow of the Financial Management Association. In 1993, he co-founded Long-Term Capital Management.

Professor Merton received a BS in engineering mathematics from Columbia University, an MS in applied mathematics from California Institute of Technology, and a PhD in economics from MIT. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Chicago, Claremont Graduate University, and seven universities outside the US.