Daniel S. Hamermesh is Sue Killam Professor Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin and Professor Emeritus, Royal Holloway University of London, and . His A.B. is from the University of Chicago (1965), his Ph.D. from Yale (1969). He taught from 1969-73 at Princeton, from 1973-93 at Michigan State, from 1993-2014 at the University of Texas at Austin, from 2009-12 at Maastricht University, from 2012-2017 at Royal Holloway University of London, and has held visiting professorships in the United States, Europe, Australia and Asia. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society, a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, and was President of the Society of Labor Economists in 2001. In 2013 that Society gave him the Mincer Award for Lifetime Contributions while he was awarded the IZA Prize in Labor economics in the same year. He also received the John R. Commons Award from Omicron Delta Epsilon.

Hamermesh authored Labor Demand, The Economics of Work and Pay, Economics Is Everywhere, Beauty Pays, Spending Time, and a wide array of articles in labor economics in the leading general and specialized economics journals.

His research concentrates on time use, labor demand, discrimination, social insurance programs (particularly unemployment insurance), and unusual applications of labor economics (to suicide, sleep and beauty).

He joined IZA as a research fellow in July 1998. From December 2001 until July 2008, he was IZA Program Director for the institute's research program "The Future of Labor." He served as IZA Director of Research from August 2008 until January 2009. Currently he acts as Editor-in-Chief of IZA World of Labor.