Jonathan Levin

Jonathan David Levin (born November 17, 1972) is an American economist, currently serving as the 13th president of Stanford University since August 2024. He served as the 10th dean of the Stanford Graduate School of Business from 2016 to 2024.

Levin is known for his research in industrial organization, particularly in the areas of market design, antitrust economics, and the economics of contracting.

Early life and education Levin received a Bachelor of Arts in English and a Bachelor of Science in mathematics from Stanford University in 1994. He then received a Master of Philosophy in economics from Nuffield College, Oxford, in 1996 and a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999.

Career Levin was a postdoctoral scholar at the Cowles Foundation at Yale University. He joined Stanford as an assistant professor in 2000 and became a full professor in 2008.

His research is in the fields of Microeconomic Theory and Industrial Organization. From 2016 until July 31, 2024, he was the Philip H. Knight Professor and Dean of Stanford Graduate School of Business, becoming the President of Stanford University on August 1, 2024. He was the Holbrook Working Professor of Price Theory in the Department of Economics at Stanford and chair of Stanford Department of Economics from 2011 to 2014. From 2021 to 2025, he was a member of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

On April 4, 2024, the Stanford University Board of Trustees announced Levin would become Stanford's 13th president, effective August 1, 2024. Levin succeeds Richard Saller, who has served as Stanford's president on an interim basis since September 2023 after the resignation of Marc Tessier-Lavigne. Levin was ceremonially inaugurated to the Presidency on September 27, 2024. Levin is the first Stanford president since 1968 to have a Stanford degree.

Awards and honors Levin has received over a dozen honors and awards. He was awarded the 2011 John Bates Clark Medal as the outstanding American economist under the age of 40, regarded as the most distinguished economic title after the Nobel Prize.

Some of his other notable achievements include:

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, 2014 American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Best Paper Award, 2014 Kavli Frontiers of Science Symposium, 2006 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, 2004–2006 George Webb Medley Thesis Prize, Oxford, 1996

Personal life Jonathan Levin is Jewish. Levin lives in Palo Alto with his wife, Amy, a physician, and their three children.

He is the son of former Yale University President Rick Levin.