Biography
Merton was born in New York City to sociologist Robert K. Merton and Suzanne Carhart. He grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Mathematics from the School of Engineering and Applied Science of Columbia University, a Masters of Science from the California Institute of Technology, and his doctorate in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970 under the guidance of Paul Anthony Samuelson. He then joined the faculty of the MIT Sloan School of Management where he taught until 1988. Subsequently, Merton moved to Harvard University, where he was George Fisher Baker Professor of Business Administration from 1988 to 1998 and has held the John and Natty McArthur University Professorship since 1998. On June 11, 2010 it was announced that Merton would retire from Harvard and rejoin the MIT Sloan School of Management. Merton also sits on the QFINANCE Strategic Advisory Board.
Read more about this topic: Robert C. Merton
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)
“There never was a good biography of a good novelist. There couldn’t be. He is too many people, if he’s any good.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“A biography is like a handshake down the years, that can become an arm-wrestle.”
—Richard Holmes (b. 1945)