Peter A. Merkel, MD, MPH is the Chief of Rheumatology and a Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Merkel is an internationally recognized research and clinical expert in vasculitis and scleroderma, two diseases he has studied for over 25 years, and is an author on over 300 scientific publications. He is the Principal Investigator of the NIH-Sponsored Vasculitis Clinical Research Consortium (VCRC), a leading international research infrastructure for vasculitis clinical investigation. He is also a Trustee and longstanding leader within the Scleroderma Clinical Trials Consortium. Dr. Merkel’s research focuses on clinical trial design and conduct, outcome measure development, clinical epidemiology, genetic epidemiology, and biomarker discovery.

Dr. Merkel received his MD from Yale University, his MPH from Harvard University, completed his residency training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and his fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Dr. Merkel has received the majority of his research support from the National Institutes of Health, the US Food and Drug Administration, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, with additional funding from industry sources and private foundations.