Patrick Timothy Harker (born November 19, 1958) is the President of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia — also known as the Philadelphia Fed or the Philly Fed — headquartered at 10 Independence Mall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is responsible for the Third District of the Federal Reserve, which covers ...
. Harker previously served as the President of
University of Delaware
The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 ma ...
. He was the
dean
Dean may refer to:
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of the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...
from 2001 to 2007. He began his presidency of the University of Delaware in 2007 and resigned in 2015.
Early life and career
Harker grew up in
Gloucester City, New Jersey
Gloucester City is a city in Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the city's population was 11,456, He graduated from St. Mary's School in Gloucester City in 1973, and was a scholar athlete at
Gloucester Catholic High School
Gloucester Catholic High School is a co-educational six-year Roman Catholic high school located in Gloucester City, in Camden County, New Jersey. The school is managed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Camden. The school serves students in se ...
.
Before receiving his Ph.D. from the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
in 1983, Harker worked as a consulting engineer in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
and
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. He was a faculty member of the
University of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...
from 1983–1984.
Harker was named a Presidential Young Investigator by the
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National ...
in 1986 and as a
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
Fellow by President George H.W. Bush in 1991. In the latter position, he spent 1991-1992 as a Special Assistant to the Director of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...
.
University of Pennsylvania
Harker joined the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania ( ; also known as Wharton Business School, the Wharton School, Penn Wharton, and Wharton) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in ...
in 1984. From 1994 to 1996, Harker served as a professor and Chair of the Systems Engineering Department in Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Harker served as chair of Wharton’s Operations and Information Management Department. In February 2000, he was appointed dean of the Wharton School and Reliance Professor of Management and Private Enterprise. He was a senior fellow at the Wharton Financial Institutions Center and held a secondary appointment as a professor of Electrical and Systems Engineering at Penn. He also served as director of the school's Fishman-Davidson Center for the Study of the Service Sector. When he was named UPS Transportation Professor of the Private Sector in 1991, Dr. Harker became the youngest faculty member in Wharton’s history awarded an endowed professorship. From 1996–99, he served as editor-in-chief of the premier journal Operations Research.
While at Penn, Harker supervised the work of 18 Ph.D. candidates and four Master's students. Also at Penn, he was principal investigator or co-principal investigator on 16 research grants totaling more than $11 million.
University of Delaware
Harker was selected as the 26th President of the
University of Delaware
The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 ma ...
on December 1, 2006. He took office on July 1, 2007.
In May 2008, Dr. Harker unveiled a sweeping strategic plan, UD’ Path to Prominence predicated on excellence in undergraduate, graduate and professional education, environmental leadership, global engagement and service to the community. He has established numerous research centers, as well as th Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships which stimulates invention and entrepreneurship and translates UD research into economy-driving technologies. To establish Delaware as a health sciences hub, UD has partnered with the region’s leading health care providers in the Delaware Health Sciences Alliance.
During his tenure as president, the University of Delaware acquired a 272-acre property adjacent to the Newark campus that is now being developed as th Science, Technology and Advanced Research (STAR) Campus Future development of this campus is designed to establish it as a center of innovation, focused on leading research in areas such as health science, cybersecurity and alternative energy. Currently, the campus is home to UD' Health Sciences Complex California-based Bloom Energy's East Coast fuel cell manufacturing center and the University's eV2g project, a two-way interface between electric vehicles and the electric grid.
Major construction projects on the campus since Dr. Harker became president include the 194,000-square-foo Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory (ISE Lab) a hub for teaching and research on campus; Louis L. Redding and Eliphalet Gilbert Residence Halls; a new University of Delaware Bookstore; and upgrades to campus athletics facilities, including an addition to the Bob Carpenter Center and a major renovation of the Carpenter Sports Building.
In 2012, Dr. Harker was named a charter fellow of the National Academy of Inventors for his outstanding personal contributions to innovation and for facilitating and nurturing patents, licensing and commercialization for the purpose of economic development for the University and the state of Delaware.
He received the INFORMS Fellows Award in recognition of outstanding lifetime achievement in operations research and the management sciences in 2012. He was recognized "for remarkable leadership at the organizations he leads and for his contributions to the theory of variational inequalities and his editorial services to INFORMS." Th Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is an international scientific society with 10,000 members.
His op-eds have been published in
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
,
The Chronicle of Higher Education
''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to re ...
,
The Philadelphia Inquirer
''The Philadelphia Inquirer'' is a daily newspaper headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The newspaper's circulation is the largest in both the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the Delaware Valley metropolitan region of Southeastern Pennsy ...
and The (Delaware) News Journal. In December 2014, his commentary "Making Sense of Higher Education's Future: An Economics and Operations Perspective," was published in Service Science.
Dr. Harker was a Class B director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia until he was appointed as the Bank's President and a member of th Homeland Security Academic Advisory Council He serves on the boards of Christiana Care Health Systems, First State Innovation, Catholic Relief Services, Easter Seals of Delaware, Decision Lens, Pepco Holdings, Huntsman Corp. and The Minerva Project, as well as many other community and nonprofit groups. He is a member of the Regional Leadership Initiative Steering Committee at the
Council on Competitiveness
The Council on Competitiveness is an American non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. The Council’s goal is to increase the United States' economic competitiveness in the global marketplace. The Council also works to bring high-value ...
and a member of the CEO Council for Growth at the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce.
Harker's compensation for the 2008–2009 fiscal year was $810,603. His pay for 2009–2010 was $726,307, and his pay for 2010–2011 was $728,329.
During his career, Harker has published several books and more than 100 articles, chapters and reports.
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia
On March 2, 2015, Harker was named the 11th president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Harker, who had served as a nonbanking Class B director of the Philadelphia Fed for the past three years, succeeded Charles Plosser, who retired effective March 1, 2015.