Gilbert Merkx

gilbert.merkx@duke.edu
(919) 684-5830

Gilbert W. Merkx is Director of International and Area Studies and Professor of the Practice of Sociology at Duke University. He also serves as Director of the Center for International Studies and as Director of the Duke Center for Islamic Studies.

Professor Merkx was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela. He has an A.B. from Harvard University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University in Sociology. He has previously taught at the University of New Mexico, the University of Gothenburg (Sweden), and Yale University. He has been a visiting scholar at Stockholm University and at the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, as well a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad de Huamanga in Ayacucho, Peru.

He is currently co-Chairman of the Council of Title VI National Resource Center Directors, a member of the Steering Committee of the Coalition for International Education, Treasurer of the Association of International Education Administrators, and serves on the boards of the Scholars at Risk Network and of Venice International University. He has formerly served as Chairman of the Group of Advisors of the National Security Education Program and as Editor of the Latin American Research Review. His research interests include globalization, second-order systems theory, and applications of constructal theory to social dynamics.