Sitting in a freshman honors math class, one student could only describe the material being furiously written on the board by the professor as “completely incomprehensible.” 

Apart from the math itself, it was an unusual day in class — Professor Peter Sarnak had foregone his signature leather jacket that day in honor of the class shrinking from approximately 90 students to 30.

“This class is now about the right size,” he said. “I’m ready to start.” 

This was not going to be an easy A for Jonathan Levin ’94.

But he persevered, working through the homework as best he could and becoming more comfortable not understanding everything. He came to believe this intellectual persistence was what led him to become an economist and, one day, Stanford’s 13th president. 

Levin was inaugurated as president on Sept. 27, 2024, following eight years serving as the dean of the Graduate School of Business (GSB). In a period marked by questions about the future of higher education, Levin has spent his two years as president navigating turbulent debates over academic freedom, relations with the federal government and student engagement.

He learned lessons about running a university early from his father, Rick Levin ’68, who served as the 22nd president of Yale.

Levin was born in New Haven, Conn. as the eldest of four siblings in an academically focused family and was the first of three siblings to attend Stanford. 

Despite being raised on the East Coast, Levin was drawn west in part because of his love for nature.

“I loved the outdoors and being in the wilderness,” Levin told The Daily. “That was one of my great passions from growing up, and one of the reasons I came to Stanford as an undergraduate.”

As far as he can remember, this love originated at a summer camp in New Hampshire. 

His enjoyment of activities like hiking and kayaking was what first gave him a “sense of California and the mountains.”

He met his now-wife Amy in high school, and even recalls taking her to the senior prom. Today, Amy works as a physician at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, and the couple have three children they raised around Stanford’s campus.

That curiosity later converged with his academic interests at Stanford. As a frosh in 1990, he said he “fell in love with the intellectual expansiveness and also the physical expansiveness of California and the American West.”

Levin described the pursuit of intellectual exploration as a defining characteristic of Stanford, and his reason for returning as a faculty member. 

Andrew Malk ’94, M.S. ’95, MBA ’01 has known Levin since their undergraduate days and maintained a friendship throughout his time at the GSB. 

“I still find myself inclined to call him ‘Jon,’ remembering him in his early 20s, a standout even then for his sharp intellect and genuine love for the outdoors, especially kayaking,” Malk wrote to The Daily.

Levin’s love of the outdoors shaped his undergraduate residential life, leading him to live in Trancos (Outdoor House). Heidi Campbell, a Trancos residential fellow (RF) who was not an RF during Levin’s years, reflected on the history of the student dorm.

“In President Levin’s inauguration address, he mentioned memories of his undergraduate experience as a blend of the classroom with trips to rivers and peaks of California,” she wrote to The Daily. “We hope he can join us for our annual whitewater rafting trip one day!”

Although Levin did not focus on a single career path early on, he had major sources of inspiration. For one, his father was not only the president of Yale but also an accomplished economist. 

Gwen Byard ’93, M.S. ’94, MBA ’00 remembers attending a speech by Rick Levin at Stanford in 1994.

“His father mentioned that his son Jon was a student at Stanford and was in the audience,” she wrote to The Daily. “It’s crazy that now a student in the audience is President of Stanford — I don’t know where the time has gone!”

While Levin also ventured into economics – conducting research on market design – he says his father’s academic interest was not the lone influence behind his decision to enter the field. 

“Even when I was an economist, people would always ask me, ‘Well, what did you learn about economics at the dining room table when you were growing up?’” Levin said. “And I always would tell people, ‘No, we never talked about economics at the dining room table. We didn’t really talk that much about university at the dining table.’” 

Jane, Levin’s mother, made sure the conversations were more varied. After earning her doctorate in English from Yale, she spent 20 years as a full-time mother. Around the time Levin left for college, she resumed teaching. 

“If you met my mom, you would know that she’s a dynamo of ideas,” Levin said. “And so when growing up, we were more likely to talk about literature at the dining room table than to talk about economics or university governance.” 

Levin credits those conversations with guiding him to an interest in literature. Seeking to balance his academic experiences, he received a bachelor’s degree in both English and mathematics.

Difficult classes – like the mathematics course with Sarnak – drove his interest in understanding the uncertain and, eventually, research.

“Research is basically about having something where you see a puzzle that you don’t understand, and then you just work to try to figure it out,” he said. 

Levin credited this way of thinking with helping him understand problems that were initially unclear to him – a common practice as university president.

After satisfying his desire to explore the outdoors as an undergraduate, Levin continued to seek a different environment.

Later in his undergraduate years, he left the U.S. for the first time for a study abroad program at Oxford. He remains in touch with peers from his cohort.

“The opportunity to be in a small group environment with a cohort of students who are all really interested and curious about learning and traveling… was very valuable,” he said.

Levin decided to return to Oxford as a faculty member for the Bing Overseas Study Program (BOSP), teaching a seminar on economic policy in the U.S. and Europe, which he called “one of [his] best teaching experiences in 25 years on the Stanford faculty.” 

Levin also completed the Stanford in Washington (SIW) residential summer program as an undergraduate. Adrienne Jamieson, the MaryLou and George Boone Centennial Director of Stanford in Washington, remembered several notable individuals who shaped his experience.

“The quarter’s programming and instruction had a significant environmental component… and former Stanford president Don Kennedy was the faculty member in residence,” she wrote to The Daily. “From what I’ve heard from other alumni who were at SIW at the same time and a bit from President Levin, it was an extraordinary opportunity to meet a wide array of leaders in environmental policy and politics more generally.”

Levin’s graduating class, noted for its luck and timing with the internet boom, included a handful of students who went on to become leaders of the tech industry. Reflecting on their generation, members of the class of 1994 later described a gender gap to The New York Times. Within the industry, a disproportionate number of men rose in rank relative to women, potentially due to factors like workplace harassment.

“It wasn’t like I was looking around thinking that ‘All of these people around me are going to see the birth of the internet,’” Levin said of his classmates. “I think within my class… there would be many women who went on and were quite successful as entrepreneurs.”

Classmate Jessica Herrin ’94 holds their peers in high regard.

“The class of ’94 is so proud,” she wrote to The Daily. “Our years on campus felt like halcyon days — student life was genuinely fun and distinctly Stanford. There’s something special about knowing the person now leading the university walked the same paths, sat in the same classes and experienced the same culture we did.”

Before becoming president, Levin served as the 10th Dean of Stanford’s GSB. Under his leadership, he focused investments on research and teaching, including the creation of the GSB Research Hub. 

As dean, he upheld a moderate, non-partisan stance. When California Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna asked Levin to help organize a meeting in Washington between top business schools and government officials, Levin accepted on the condition that Khanna find a Republican co-sponsor.

“I wanted to be sure we were talking to people from both sides of the aisle,” Levin said at the time. 

He faced a moment of criticism in 2017 after a data leak exposed confidential university information, including details of questionable financial aid practices. Based on the data breach, an MBA student at the time found that the GSB had misrepresented its financial aid as strictly need-based, when some aid had actually been awarded for other reasons, such as industry background.

“Despite problematic circumstances around the data access, the student’s report raises an issue we intend to address,” Levin wrote at the time. “I believe that a preferable approach, going forward, is to be significantly more transparent about the principles and objectives being applied in making financial aid awards, and about how different awards are being made.”

Connections between the GSB and Silicon Valley deepened during this time, drawing guest lecturers and co-teachers who were members of the tech industry.

“I loved being the dean of the Stanford Business School,” Levin said. “It was not one of my career aspirations to become a business school dean. It wasn’t even something that had ever crossed my mind, more or less, until I became the business school dean. It was suggested to me by our former provost, John Etchemendy, whose wisdom I really valued.”

Levin credited Etchemendy as a source of advice during his transition into the GSB role. 

“I, to some extent, sort of took [the role] on faith because I trusted him so much,” Levin said. This “incredible opportunity,” as Levin put it, gave him a front-row seat to how students graduating from Stanford go out and “do extraordinary things” in the world. 

Leading the GSB, he faced what he called a “big tension” in fostering an environment that valued both education and practical applications of knowledge.

Following his leadership at the GSB, Levin succeeded Richard Saller, Stanford’s interim president after the previous president – Marc Tessier-Lavigne – resigned.

Tessier-Lavigne had his work called into question after a report by The Daily outlined inconsistencies in some of his scientific papers. A later committee report found that Tessier-Lavigne did not act appropriately to correct these errors. 

He subsequently resigned and was replaced by interim president Richard Saller. Heated campus politics followed soon after. Following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel, pro-Palestinian protests ensued across campus, some met by pro-Israel counterprotests. 

Amid high tensions and intense scrutiny of higher education, the period was a notably difficult time to serve as a university president. Several resigned or lost their jobs in the same few years, including Claudine Gay ’92 at Harvard and former Stanford Law School dean Liz Magill at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Senkai Hsia ’24 M.S. ’25, a student who served on the presidential search committee, reflected on Levin’s transition into the presidency.

“It was an honor to contribute to the search process, and I’ve been delighted to see President Levin leading Stanford with openness and optimism,” he wrote to The Daily. 

Outside of his many presidential duties, Levin says he still finds time to develop interests like literature.

“I do still like to read fiction,” he said. “Over the [winter] break, I read a whole set of books by Emily St. John Mandel.”

He regularly attends class reunions, meeting old classmates who graduated in the same year, even if he did not know them at the time.

MeiMei Fox ’94, who met Levin at a class reunion in 2025, called Levin “warm and approachable” in an email to The Daily. “It felt like he genuinely enjoyed connecting with everyone. I appreciated the lovely reception for our classmates that he hosted at his home.”

Levin remains enthusiastic as he finishes out his second year as president. 

“The biggest pleasure for me in this job so far – and I fully expect it to continue – has been meeting different people around the University and seeing and hearing about the types of things they’re doing and how the University can support them,” he said. “To do that effectively, you have to understand: What are people trying to accomplish?”

Levin remembers that drive toward accomplishment from his undergraduate years, including in Sarnak’s math class.

“That class sort of taught me to be comfortable not understanding things,” he said. “To sit there in class and have to think as hard as I could and feel like everyone else was smarter and understood… then to go away and really work hard.”