Meet President S. Brock Blomberg

About President S. Brock Blomberg

President Blomberg is the eighth president of CIIS. A magna cum laude graduate of University of Tampa, he earned master’s and doctoral degrees in economics from Johns Hopkins University.

President Blomberg is focused on developing CIIS as a singular, sustainable, and spiritually grounded institution. Since assuming the presidency in 2021, he has engaged the University community in articulating a vision for CIIS’ future through a strategic planning effort involving faculty, staff, students, alumni, partners, families, and friends. This effort resulted in an ambitious new 6-year strategic plan: Building On Commitment: CIIS @ 60, which includes reimagining and resourcing the University’s core identity for the 21st century, including new branding and state-or-the-art website, overhauling institutional systems and structures, elevating the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to its own division, and developing a University endowment. President Blomberg is also prioritizing the well-being of the entire community through the Restoration & Reinvestment Action Plan to bring compensation equity to faculty and staff; transforming CIIS’ DEI model to focus on resilience and well-being; and building bold and innovative programs for health and wellness. He is additionally committed to advancing the University’s educational prominence through public outreach and conversation, which has resulted in widespread media placement of faculty and staff research in renowned publications, particularly related to psychedelic-assisted therapy, climate change, and trauma. He continues to support Public Programs and global initiatives – including a transformation accelerator with enterprise luminaries and a center for contemplative studies – that have placed CIIS at the center of essential international conversations.

Prior to joining CIIS, President Blomberg served as President of Ursinus College, leading the institution through its first campus master plan in nearly a generation. Under his stewardship, the college raised more than $107 million in gifts from a single comprehensive campaign and completed a $29 million Innovation and Discovery Center with two award-winning venues. He also launched the college’s Institute for Inclusion and Equity to coordinate programming and dialogue around diversity and social justice.

President Blomberg has published over 30 articles and book chapters in top economics journals such as the American Economic Review, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Public Economics, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. His research shows that terrorism has a statistically significant impact on the economy and that trade is particularly sensitive to attacks.

Blomberg was dean of the Robert Day School of Economics and Finance at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, where he also served as the Peter K. Barker Professor of Economics and the George R. Roberts Fellow. An internationally known scholar, Blomberg is a political economist with deep roots in national and global economic policy. He was on the faculty at Wellesley College and served as a visiting scholar at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

Blomberg was a senior economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and was the U.S. Representative to the Economic Committee for Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation. He also served at the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Blomberg served as a captain in the U.S. military for eight years.

S. Brock Blomberg Bio (pdf)
S. Brock Blomberg Bio Brief (pdf)
S. Brock Blomberg CV (pdf)