Dr. Samuel Thompson Jr

Biography

Samuel C. Thompson Jr. directs Penn State’s Center for the Study of Mergers and Acquisitions and holds the Arthur Weiss Distinguished Faculty Scholar title. He teaches courses on mergers and acquisitions, focusing on corporate, securities, tax, and antitrust aspects of complex transactions. Additionally, he teaches federal income tax and international tax. In Spring 2024, he will teach a course emphasizing the lawyer's role in closing the minority-white gap in business ownership. Thompson has held significant governmental tax policy positions, including serving as an Attorney-Advisor for the U.S. Treasury’s Tax Legislative Counsel's Office and as a tax policy advisor for the South African Ministry of Finance, where he assisted in revising the country's income tax system. He has consulted on merger and acquisition issues for the Federal Trade Commission and was part of the European Commission’s Antitrust Merger Taskforce. Thompson has authored over twenty books and seventy-five articles on topics related to corporate and international tax, as well as mergers and acquisitions. Before his current position, he was a full professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and UCLA School of Law, and served as dean of the University of Miami School of Law.

Research Interests