Daniel Goroff – Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Daniel Goroff is Vice President and Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation where his primary areas of interest are mathematics, finance, the scientific and technical workforce, education and employment issues. For two decades he spent designing and teaching courses in mathematics, physics, history of science, economics and more at Harvard University – as well as co-founding and leading their Masters Degree program “Mathematics for Teaching”.

Goroff has long championed scientific rigor and openness. He has provided testimony regarding this matter before both houses of Congress.

Early Life and Education

Daniel Goroff is an advocate for research rigor and reproducibility as well as evidence-based policy making. Additionally, he supports more open science initiatives, including increased public access and engagement with scientific information; community-driven research agendas; prizes for “citizen” science projects or crowdsourcing activities; as well as open source research.

He has published extensively in nonlinear systems, chaos and decision theory and held visiting positions at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in Paris, Berkeley’s Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and Dibner Institute at MIT. Additionally he serves on the board of directors for American Association for Higher Education as well as testifying before Congress regarding educational and research matters.

At Harvey Mudd College he designs and teaches courses in mathematics, history of science, physics, economics and the scientific and technical workforce. At Harvard he was honored to earn both an M.Phil in economics under Churchill scholarship and then went on to obtain his Ph.D in mathematics under Princeton as Danforth Fellow.

Professional Career

Goroff serves as Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a private philanthropy that funds breakthroughs in science and technology. He specializes in behavioral economics, government regulation, big data analytics and has provided testimony before Congress about science education issues.

His research includes optimization over time, decision-making under uncertainty and privacy issues, among many others. He has held extended visiting positions at Bell Laboratories, the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques in Paris and Berkeley’s Mathematical Sciences Research Institute among others institutions; in addition to writing or editing several books including an extended introduction of Les Methodes Nouvelles de la Mecanique Celeste by Henri Poincare he also held three-volume translation rights to these works with extensive introductions of course!

Falling Behind? is an indispensable addition to STEM crisis literature. While its primary target audience may be government and educational policy analysts, working scientists and engineers will find it equally useful.

Achievement and Honors

Goroff has extensive knowledge in nonlinear systems and chaos theory, optimization over time, decision making under uncertainty and the economics of science. His tenure includes visiting positions at Paris’ Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques; Berkeley’s Mathematical Sciences Research Institute and Bell Laboratories respectively – plus having founded and directed Harvard’s Masters Program “Mathematics for Teaching”, enrolling numerous degree candidates each year.

Professor Coombs is a Phi Beta Kappa recipient, having designed and taught courses in mathematics, physics, history of science, engineering, economics and more. He is widely published, having written textbooks on reasoning as well as an introduction and translation to Henri Poincare’s Les Methodes Nouvelles de la Mecanique Celeste by translation with introduction. Furthermore, he is a Fellow of the American Association for Higher Education.

Personal Life

Goroff is an esteemed member of the National Academy of Sciences, having testified before both Houses of Congress regarding research policy, serving on the board of Science Philanthropy Alliance and founding Societal Experts Action Network as well as Research on Research Initiative. His research interests focus on optimization over time and decision-making under uncertainty as well as nonlinear systems and chaos theory; his extended visiting positions include Bell Laboratories in New Jersey; the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques de Paris and Mathematical Sciences Research Institutes both of Berkeley.

Former Director of the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics, he has taught extensively at Harvard University for over two decades as Professor of Practice and Associate Director of Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning. Additionally, he created and directed a Masters Program titled “Mathematics for Teaching”, which still enrolls new students each year.

Net Worth

Daniel Goroff serves as Senior Vice President at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, an award-giving philanthropy supporting breakthroughs in science, technology and economics. Additionally, he holds an emeritus professor position at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont where he held several roles including dean of faculty and vice president for academic affairs. Daniel also sits on various scientific organizations’ boards as well as providing testimony before Congress about science policy; his research centers around nonlinear systems chaos theory decision theory with extended visiting positions at Parisian Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques; Bell Laboratories New Jersey; and Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Berkeley among others.