Biography

Dr. Patrick T. Harker is the 26th president of the University of Delaware, a position he assumed in July 2007. Concurrent with his appointment as president, Dr. Harker was appointed professor of Business Administration in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics and a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering in UD’s College of Engineering.

In May 2008, Dr. Harker unveiled UD’s Path to Prominence™, a sweeping strategic plan predicated on an intellectually stimulating undergraduate experience, excellence in research and in graduate and professional education, environmental leadership, global engagement and service to the community.

Since then, Dr. Harker has established a number of new research centers to support these goals, among them the Delaware Environmental Institute and the UD Energy Institute—integrating energy and environmental science, engineering and policy—the Institute for Global Studies and the Center for Political Communications. He established the Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships to stimulate invention and entrepreneurship and translate UD research into economy-driving technologies, and partnered with the region’s leading health care providers in the Delaware Health Sciences Alliance to strengthen health care education, research and delivery, and establish Delaware as a health sciences hub.

Prior to his appointment at UD, Dr. Harker was the dean of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise. Dr. Harker was appointed dean in February 2000, after serving as the school’s interim dean and deputy dean. Dr. Harker was also a senior fellow at the Wharton Financial Institutions Center and held a secondary appointment as a professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering at Penn. Before assuming the deanship, Dr. Harker was chair of the Operations and Information Management Department at Wharton.

Dr. Harker is a trustee of the Goldman Sachs Trust and the Goldman Sachs Variable Insurance Trust, a member of the board of directors of Pepco Holdings, Inc. and a founding member of the board of advisors for Decision Lens, Inc. Previously, Dr. Harker served as a member of the board of managers of the Goldman Sachs Hedge Fund Partners Registered Fund LLC, a member of the advisory board of Juniper Bank and chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of Traffic.com, Inc.

Dr. Harker’s nonprofit leadership includes service as a member of the boards of Christiana Care Health Systems, First State Innovation, Catholic Relief Services and Easter Seals of Delaware. He is a member of the Regional Leadership Initiative Steering Committee at the Council on Competitiveness, and a trustee of Howard University. He is also a founding member of the Board of Directors of the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management.

Dr. Harker received his B.S.E. and M.S.E. in Civil Engineering in 1981, and an M.A. in Economics and a Ph.D. in Civil and Urban Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 1983.

Dr. Harker became the youngest faculty member in Wharton’s history awarded an endowed professorship when he was named the UPS Transportation Professor of the Private Sector in 1991. In 1994, Dr. Harker was named chair of the Department of Systems Engineering in Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and held this position until 1996.

In his 26-year career, Dr. Harker has published or edited nine books and more than 100 professional articles. Most recently, Dr. Harker is engaged in the analysis of the operations and economics of the service sector. From 1996–99, he served as editor-in-chief of Operations Research, the premier journal in the field.

In June 1991, President George H.W. Bush named Dr. Harker a White House Fellow, one of 16 chosen nationwide. In this position, he served one year as a special assistant to the director of the FBI.

Dr. Harker is married to the former Emily Grace Saaty and is the father of three children: Thomas Patrick, Michael Francis and Meghan Emma.