Daniel Goroff

Daniel L. Goroff is Vice President and Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a grant-making philanthropy that supports breakthroughs in science, technology, and economics. He is also Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Economics at Claremont’s Harvey Mudd College, where he served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty.

Dr. Goroff earned his B.A.-M.A. degree in mathematics summa cum laude at Harvard as a Borden Scholar, an M.Phil. in economics at Cambridge University as a Churchill Scholar, a Masters in mathematical finance at Boston University, and a Ph.D. in mathematics at Princeton University as a Danforth Fellow. He also completed the Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

Dr. Goroff’s first faculty appointment was at Harvard University in 1983. During over two decades at Harvard, he rose to the rank of Professor of the Practice of Mathematics while also serving as Associate Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning, a Resident Tutor at Leverett House, and as an elected member of the Faculty Council, the “cabinet” of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

At Harvard, Dr. Goroff designed and taught courses for the mathematics, physics, history of science, economics, engineering, and continuing education programs. He was the founding director of a Masters Degree Program in “Mathematics for Teaching” offered through the Harvard Extension School. After pioneering international distance education in the 1980’s, his online courses included “Decisions, Games, and Negotiations” which was co-taught with Harvard Business School Professor Howard Raiffa. Dr. Goroff is a winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Prize for Teaching Excellence.

In pursuing his research on nonlinear systems, chaos, and decision theory, Dr. Goroff has held visiting positions at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Paris, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, and the Dibner Institute at MIT. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in their Mathematics Section.

In 1994, Dr. Goroff was elected to a three-year term on the Board of Directors of the American Association for Higher Education. During 1996-97, he was a Division Director at the National Research Council in Washington, and during 1997-98, he worked for the President’s Science Advisor at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

As Director of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics from 1998 to 2001, Dr. Goroff testified about educational and research priorities before both the House and the Senate during the 106th Congress and again during the 109th Congress. He was a founding board member of “Scientists and Engineers for America” and co-directed the Scientific and Engineering Workforce Project based at the National Bureau of Economic Research. A former Chair of the U.S. National Commission on Mathematics Instruction at the National Research Council, he has also served there on the Board on International Scientific Organizations and the Forum on Open Science.

Dr. Goroff is a Trustee of Smith College, a member of the Board of Directors of the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation in Basel, and a member of the NSF Advisory Committee on Cyberinfrastructure. He is also a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Mathematics at Columbia University’s Teachers College. During 2010, Dr. Goroff served part time as Assistant Director for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.